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Phonetics

Pronunciation

One helpful thing when studying Finnish is the regular pronunciation; we use to say, that "Finnish is always pronounced like it's written".

Here are all the sounds and alphabets in Finnish. They are similar to other European languages, but some consonants are left out, and there are two extra vowels, ä and ö.

There are 8 vowels: a, e, i, o, u, y, ä and ö; and 14 consonants d, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v.

Click the button to listen the example.

Sound	Finnish example	sound in English
a	auto auto	car
b	not in use
c	not in use
d	Download link sydän	David
e	esine esine	egg
f	not in use
g	gaselli gaselli	gate
h	hevonen hevonen	hello!
i	iso iso	wit
j	jano jano	young
k	kivi kivi	key
l	lapsi lapsi	lip
m	mies mies	man
n	nainen nainen	nail
o	osata osata	four
p	pelata pelata	pool
q	not in use
r	ruma ruma	roof
s	saada saada	soap
t	tie tie	tear
u	uida uida	blue
v	vaja vaja	verb
w	not in use
x	not in use
y	ystävä ystävä	like /i/, but lower
ä	äiti äiti	cat
ö	öljy öljy	like /e/, but lower

Notes:

Stress is always on first syllable.
You must pronounce every sound: nothing should be left out.

Diphthongs

A diphthong is an entity of two vowels together. In many other European languages, such as English, that is interpreted as a single vowel, in Finnish usually as a combination. It means, that both vowels are pronounced.

Diphtongs in Finnish language are:

ai, ei, oi, ui, yi, äi , öi, au, eu, iu, ou, äy, öy, ie, uo, yö

Examples:

paita
peili
poika
puita
kyitä
äiti
öitä
nauta
peura
tiuku
outo
väylä
pöytä
tieto
vuori
työtön

Lenght

The length of the sound is important in Finnish. The word can have a separate meaning depending on the length.