Jonne

Finnish pronunciation is very easy..

A - as british a in father.
B - no problems with it..
C - s or k
D - no problems with it..
E - like english e in bet or vet.
F - no problems with it..
G - no problems with it..
H - like english h. in the end of a syllable/before a consonant a bit harder.
I - like english i in sit.
J - like english y in yes.
K - no problems with it..
L - like english l in clean or less.
M - no problems with it..
N - no problems with it..
NK - like english nk in think.
NG - like english ng in sing.
NP - mp
NL - ll
NM - mm
O - somewhat similar to english a in all.
P - no problems with it..
Q - no problems with it..
R - very rrrolling rrr..
S - no problems with it..
T - your tongue touches your upper teeth.
U - like english u in boot but shorter
V - no problems with it..
W - no problems with it..
X - ks
Y - like german ü or french u.
Z - ts or z or s.
Å - same as o
Ä - like english a in cat or bag.
Ö - like french eu.

The full alphabet:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z å ä ö

Long vowels & Double consonants
Long vowels are easy, just say the vowel but longer..
same with double consonants. The thing is that you have to be very careful with this. Always pronounce double consonants and long vowels.
Annan kissa = Anna's cat
Annan kissaa = I'm giving a cat

Tapaan sinut huomenna = I'll meet you tomorrow.
Tapan sinut huomenna = I'll kill you tomorrow.

Diphtongs

there are several in finnish;
ai, ei, oi, ui, yi, äi, öi, au, eu, iu, ou, äy, öy, ie, uo, ey, yö.

this doesn't affect the pronounciation of the word, because every letter stands for an independent sound. So "eu" is "e+u" , not anything like ö.

Stress
Stress is always on the first syllable.
Auto - Áuto
Lahti - Láhti
Raivo - Ráivo

with compounds, the second word gets a secondary stress.

sadetakki - sádetákki
rautatieasema - ráutatieásema

NOTE that when the first word of a compound ends with a stop (like e), the following consonant is doubled in pronunciation.

sadetakki=sadettakki


For audio files, there's a thread called "Audio1, pronounciation"


Now, if you feel like really learning what i teach, make sure that you know the pervious lesson by heart before going to next one. otherwise you'll have to jump between every lesson i made.

Nadine

Hey Jonne,

Never thought I would start learning finnish .

'till now, no questions...

Nadine

Jonne

hehe, it's a good time to start now I'll soon post a lesson with some descriptions of the language and greetings.

Vinayakan

Jonne, a good idea to teach us Finnish.

It is good to learn a language with has a very different structure.
Finnish is quite unlike the other European languages (and the Indian languages of course). This has a special attraction for me.

__________________
ವಸುಧೈವ ಕುಟುಂಕಮ್ /The world is one family / वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्

Avila

Oh how great! Finnish lessons! Exactly what I was looking for! That's great!

I've got one question, but I don't really know how to formulate it:
Where do you roll the r? Behind the teeth or more back in the fauces?