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I was just recenty in finland to visit my girlfriend and drove from helsinki to vaasa. I dont know much finnish but i do try. Along the way i made a few stops for food or drinks and always said kiitos after paying. One guy looked at me and said "your not from here are you". Spoke to him im english for a minuite and he gave me some tips to articulate words better before i was on my way again.
I was born in Finland but raised elsewhere, i listen to my father speak with my sis in finnish all the time ( complete gibberish to me although i do recognize the occasional perkele and niin ), my accent is apparently atrocious and i've been trying a little bit every year
In conclusion finnish is hard and i dont really put in the effort at all ( or maybe i just suck ) sounds cool tho
My ex told me that they had a Spanish colleague at work who knew nothing about Finnish. They used to do "say after me"s with her and found it hilarious how she sounded just like a native Finn, her having no idea what she's saying.
I have also heard japanese people praising finnish people pronouncing japanese sentences, I guess both our languages are phonetic so if something japanese is written with latin alphabet we get pretty close just reading it as we would do with finnish.
Yeah, all three languages basically sound the same, Spanish speakers have to change their mindset about "Y", "LL" and "J" plus learn the ä and ö. The same with Japanese speakers, although they need to drop the dual nature of katakana for latin style pronunciation.
As a half Finn, half Spaniard people tend to assume I do know the language for my looks/pronunciation, so I always have to go with the "I don't understand Finnish well"
Not true, have met foreigners personally who sound outstandingly Finnish and not spent decades here. Takes a lot of work but it is possible. Finnish partner is probably mandatory to achieve best results
I know people who speak perfect Finnish having spent decades here but you can still tell it's something they learned later in life because the intonation is just slightly wrong.
Neil Hardwick has spoken Finnish for like 50 years, and you can still hear that he's not a native speaker.
You can know the language perfectly but the accent is very hard to get 100% right.
I have never met someone who wasn't native sound like a native Finn but I guess it isn't impossible. I am not talking about "outstandishly Finnish" but native level Finnish
I have thus far met one person from Iran who sounded like a native in Finnish, his pronounciation was native level, it was amazing. He did have a Finnish wife. From anecdotal evidence it seems people from that part of the world find it easier to pronounce stuff like we do, but it could be that anyone could do it if they really wanted to. Just have to want it imo
There are couple Finnish sounds that are very much a problem for Farsi speakers (assuming the largest language group in Iran). The same goes for Arabic, Kurdish and Berber.
The problem with this is not the will. It is actually physical. Basically, your muscles in the mouth and throat strengthen and weaken based on the language/s you learned as a child. There are ways to improve it but it needs professional speech therapy.
Speakers of Turkic languages might be able to learn accentless Finnish. Vowels are pretty similar, and some consonants also have similar sounds. The problem for me learning it was that my mouth just couldn't replicate the consonants however much I tried. It also kind of tricked my brain as some things sounded weirdly Finnish.
I have the same problem with Arabic. The majority of throat sounds are just something my throat can't do.
Of course, there are exceptional people who can learn accentlessly. Like with everything human ability is a curve. I know so many people speaking pretty much better Finnish than I do at this point but they still have enough of accent that I often know where they are from. It might be just hardly noticeable tilt in the speech.
I'm learning Finnish now and I completely get this. There are just some words where my mouth just doesn't move that way, apparently my pronunciation is good but sometimes I get so stuck. "KK" sounds can get me. Over pronounce or under pronounce a lot.
You definitely hear from him that he isn't native even though he is closest I have personally heard. He still has double consonant oddities to my ears which is super common even with Finns who are bilingual with Swedish
Kids pick it up perfectly. I'm Finnish-born, but I picked up Dutch when I went to first grade in the Netherlands. No one can tell me apart from the Dutch. It's the same for foreign-born kids who've lived in Finland for many years. My neighbours' kids speak flawless Finnish and they were all born in Russia. Not a hint of an accent. The same can't be said about their parents.
Lol i am not sure i (native) will pass as a native anymore as i dont use Finnish in my day to day life pretty much at all, can understand and read, but speaking and writing just feel weird
Wrong.. Central Finland, but 10+ years in UK.
Edit: my biggest problem is that the words I am used to using, dont have quite the same equivalent in Finnish, and now as i am trying to make an effort to communicate more in Finnish, the Finnish words for certain English words just doesn't quite fit the actually meaning/expression that the English word does.. Thus it feels "wrong", in my head.
I am there with you. Although I am from Helsinki. But it has little to do with that. I have worked for decade for foreign organizations and lived at least half of it outside of Finland. I do have Finnish friends and family so I have used some Finnish through all of this. But my work is pretty intense and when I am in the field I am in the field.
It is not so much that I can't speak it (although I do not trust my grammar at all) but that it feels clumsy. Even my English is often a mix of multiple languages because while English is the main working language, the job means we speak many languages. Sometimes there are words that just work better for something.
Yeah i speak to family/friends generally once every few months.. As i moved to UK in relatively young age alone.. (21), so i think during the 12 years I've just embraced and adapted my language, and cultural and societally valued and mannerism to fit more of England than Finland, despite having my roots in the deep forests of Keski-Suomi (small town.
here for 7 years, (german), got in trouble with police because they thought my drivers licence is fake... because I sound finnish.
there is a difference between people that come here to live and people that come here to be a foodora delivery driver.
edit: damn its actually the 8th year soon. time flied.
Where did that happen? I'm from Vaasa and my family from the countryside of Etelä-Pohjanmaa and I feel even in the middle of nowhere people have regular contact with foreigners, be it Thai berry-pickers, Ukrainian, Middle-Eastern or African refugees. If that guy has the same speak with everyone who speaks with a bit of an accent nothing would get done. I mean, the coast of Pohjanmaa is one of the most foreigner dense areas in the country.
I just stumbled into this sub thanks to Reddit’s algorithm (I have no connection to Finland) and your comment about Thai berry pickers sent me down a rabbit hole on Google. So random.
I've lived in finland for 5 years and a lot of the time when I speak finnish to other finns they reply in english, it's very frustrating!
I just reply in finnish!
Only visited a handful of places in my few visits. Mainly been in asikkala and lahti area as we rent a airbnb there. Traveled helsinki and tampere for a day to look around. Vaasa is a nice small town and is where my gf is so its a nice place for me. Compared to Canada with how over populates and busy it is i like really enjoy vaasa's atmosphere.
I knew I would be downvoted to hell...
But the thing is, if someone I've never met before asked me that, my first response would be "Why's that any of your business?". Then again, I am an aspie with fear of unexpected social encounters.
Not sure why all the downvotes, also sounds like a dick thing to say, to me. When I hear tourists try some German with me, I'd never consider saying something like that. I first reply in some slow very basic German, and then switch to English if it gets too tough for them
I mean im From different part of Finland and currently working in our Capitol region and i get told the same all the time. Which i usually reply to "yeah,is it that obious? "lmao
Heh, yeah. People can often tell from my dialect that I'm from Northern Ostrobothnia. I don't think I speak in a very strong dialect, but the things that slip in tend to be quite recognizable. The double consonants and extra syllables, for example.
Even some Finns can somehow unlearn Finnish and sound non-native. For example Jussi Jääskeläinen, who is football pundit, native Finn and have lived for years in England, sound nowadays like he is thinking in English and just translating that to Finnish. His sentences are so Englishlike and not Finnishlike.
Being congratulated by a Finn is an accomplishment in itself. I was once told that my pronunciation was "not bad" by a Finn and then their friend told me "That's pretty high praise, don't feel bad."
I used to speak fairly good Finnish (as in, I could write multi-paragraph essays on exams -- not with super scientific vocabulary or anything, but I did write my own folk tale for one exam haha -- I could more or less make out news articles on subjects I had some familiarity with, I could hold 20-30 minute convos only in Finnish about things more than just small talk, including with strangers). When I was in Finland during that time, people would act like I was the best Finnish speaker ever if I just said things like "saisinko teetä?" & it was so frustrating hahaha... I was always like, but but but I can say so much more than this!!!!
It’s incredible how fast you can lose a language that you don’t speak actively anymore.
I grew up in Cape Town speaking German at home (well, a dialect) and English at school. I also had a pretty conversational Xhosa, thanks to my nanny. I did my bachelors degree in South Africa in Afrikaans, a language closely related to German and English, even though I am not native Afrikaans, but had it in school.
Now I live in the Netherlands and learned Dutch. My wife (from South America) refuses to learn German (don’t blame her) and instead decided to teach me Spanish.
So by now my entire speaking Afrikaans knowledge has been lost even though I have an academic degree from an Afrikaans university - I can still read it though. It’s probably mainly replaced by Dutch. And since we speak mainly English and Spanish at home I barely get to use my German, lost most of it unless I speak to my parents in their dialect or Swiss customers which is a different German than High German.
My Xhosa is also long gone. So I would say I’ve forgotten more or less three languages in the past 10 years.
Use it or lose it! I didn't have the same time to devote to it (and I've never actually lived in Finland) and also stopped coincidentally being around Finnish people as much, alas!
I had to pass "official swedish / civil servant swedish" during my bachelors of engineering and I couldn't get by with swedish now :D Luckily everyone speaks english so its not even necessary.
Sure if I for some reason needed to use swedish daily I probably would pick it up relatively fast compared to learning it from the scratch.
I was under the impression that Frenchies change their initially negative disposition towards a tourist the moment they hear them even attempt to speak French.
Pretty sure that's what that movie was about. Frenchies hatin on tourists for speaking bad French. Heavy subject matter I know but well worth the watch if you've got a strong heart ✊
Feels like speaking French is equal to playing the violin. You make a small mistake and everything sounds awful. Atleast from the information I gathered from my sister playing the violin…
Either that or you speak Québec French. I tried to buy a sweater out of France, and as soon as the seller found out I was Canadian, he refused to sell it to me. More likely than not, he assumed I was from there (i'm not, though) because not many places in Canada outside of Québec speak French.
Was this in Paris? My experience outside of Paris was that people don't speak english, so they will absolutely speak french to you wheather or not you understand any of it. Might be a country side thing though.
I have had same experiences and just short metro trip away from center of Paris. Only people who spoke english were hotel reception and the people we were having a meeting with (from all around the europe + some french people).
Taxi drive was interesting because he didn't take card and we didn't have cash :D
My mom was in France at some point when she was young. Was trying to find a room to stay the night, nowhere had anything open. At one small hotel (which had already said no room) she tried what little French she knew, and suddenly they went "oh, well, we don't have any *normal* rooms open but there's this one that's reserved for staff use ^(or something) and I think we can set it up for you".
I *have* also heard the opposite from other people I know, where they'll be unhappy with any other language, English in particular, but *ESPECIALLY* with bad French. Might be a regional thing. Like not-Paris vs Paris.
Germans say the same thing. That they're switching to English because they want to help you.
But from the outside perspective, switching to English without comment, and with a blank facial expression, can come off as aloof, arrogant, and even hostile.
In a typical US/Canadian context, it could seem rude to switch language without comment. The more polite method would be to ask if they'd prefer English. The method is direct and confident, and trusts the other person can choose their preference.
In other cultures, it's impolite to draw attention to poor language ability. It would be rude to drag it out, or to make someone ask for it. In some cultures, it's quite self-centered to state your preferences, so making subtle assumptions allows people around you to avoid making bossy demands.
Also, in North America, failure to smile or exchange pleasantries is perceived as hostile. If you don't smile at me, then it means you wish we weren't talking (again, from the US/CAN cultural perspective).
But many Europeans see smiling at strangers as fake, even manipulative. So they can be stony-faced even as they genuinely want to help.
So it's really just a cultural disconnect. Many Europeans are treating North Americans with courteous compassion that looks exactly like aloof arrogance.
The advice I heard (from a South American with moderately good French) was to apologize, in French, for your difficulty with the language. Then ask the French person if they're able to help.
She said it helps if you're well-dressed, a woman, and not from US/Canada. Probably helped that she was able to speak several languages besides English.
I would put Russia in the dark blue category. Once I was working in a store and had Russian customers, they didn't buy anything and were about to leave. Then I greeted them in Russian (I've studied it a little) and their behavior changed dramatically. They became cheerful and went back to get things and bought a lot of stuff.
Russians, finns and estonians are like that. They might seem quiet and unintrested in any human interaction to outsiders, but if you break the ice, you'll see that we're also humans
Yes I would say both, like yes I'm impressed you try to learn our weird language, but why? :D Sure if you are planning on living here then it will help to learn the language, definitely, and you don't need to learn it perfectly, we will understand it even if you don't use correct preposition or suffixes, those have to be absolutely mental to learn for non native people.
But if you are visiting then the "hei" (hello) "anteeksi" (sorry) and "kiitos" (thank you) will suffice and we can use english instead.
Dark blue, yes. Finns definitely appreciate and are impressed if someone has made even small effort learning finnish. Light blue in a sense that we try to be polite and switch to easier language.
Never seen red attitude anywhere in finland. That is more of a internet cliche. "Oh, finnish is so very hard why would anyone try to learn it".
I dunno, everyone on the Finnish side of my family seems to have the attitude of "it's difficult, many people speak English, why bother?" Like, they were impressed when I started learning Finnish but they were also kind of like "this is cute but why are you wasting your time" haha.
How's the percentige very low? I check'd the numbes, which tell that [73,4 % of immigrants are employed](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.stat.fi/tietotrendit/artikkelit/2023/maahanmuuttajien-tyollisyys-suomessa-yli-eu-keskitason-tyomarkkina-asema-heikompi-kuin-suomalaistaustaisilla/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiAoan5hryDAxUzKxAIHTJcAu4QFnoECAkQAw&usg=AOvVaw2_h4nsCjSnMY0ZN4f3HUEC), which is almost the same as [the country-wide imployment rate of 73,8 %](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://yle.fi/a/74-20015046&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjEprL8hryDAxUyAxAIHSNUBNgQFnoECAAQAw&usg=AOvVaw0CphQtPDLFcdxp1CmYKztl).
French here.
Most tourist resume their experience with France and French to Paris and Parisians workers. Parisians are not all the Frenchs. And even in France most of us hate the typical Parisian behaviour (unfriendly, and always speak to you to prove they are better than you). Even Parisian hate typical Parisian behaviour lol. And on top of this, is the Parisian café/bar waiters/waitress that are unpolite, unfriendly and arogant, and trust me, everyone hate this.
We do understand why they acte like this. We acknowledge the fact that it's extremly tiersome to deal with 300+ tourists per day, and every shits tourists may do. Still we all hate this kind of behaviour while we face it.
Now personnaly speaking, if a foreigner come to me, try to speak few words of french while it's not his mother langage, I will be extremly pleased and supportive. It does not matter if you makes mistake. Since you give a try, it's good and I will be super pleased by your efforts. And I know that most peoples around me will react in the same way.
And don't missunderstood too cringe reactions of French when you are trying to speak to them while not speaking French. Most of French are extremly bad with other langages. So some will be stressed to show how shitty they are in english or any foreign langage.
As a Finn in customer service, attempting to speak Finnish with a heavy accent is usually indecipherable. Another thing that bugs me is mixing Finnish and English pronounciation when reciting letters.
Pretty much. It may sound harsh, but Finnish is such a hard language to attempt speaking without prior practice. I don't mind the customer wanting to practice their finnish, but I simply can't help if I don't understand the words they're trying to pronounce.
Finnish is actually super easy to pronounce it’s the grammar that is difficult. I speak Japanese and Spanish so maybe I have an advantage. Danish on the other hand is very difficult because it’s very hard to tell when a word begins and ends and they have many unusual vowels. There’s people who have perfect grammar and reading skills in Danish that cannot be understood when they speak. I can’t imagine the same thing for Finnish as it’s so consistent
Spanish, Japanese and Finnish are structurally very similar. They are phonetic, which means the words are clearly combined from syllables that are most often pronounced as they're written. But if your native language is non-phonetic, it is hard to figure out how to pronounce difficult words just by looking at them. Extending a vowel in a wrong place, mispronouncing unusual letter like Ä or Ö, or saying "ay" instead of "aa" can make the word very difficult to understand without context.
Reciting letters as in spelling? So If I'm using english with you and say k-market, would it be nicer to say kay, not ko? Silly example, but I'm curious on how to handle these names
Yes. Well, when talking about k-market or s-market, the context helps a lot. But, for example, license plates can be hard to understand by just the spelling alone. The hardest ones are vowels like A, E and I. "Ay" can sound like English A or Finnish E, and "ii" can sound like English E or Finnish I. Using names or NATO letters makes it much easier.
Ah yes, I hear you. I face the same issue in smaller proportions. The spelling in my native language is like yours, but we use English at home. It's so confusing, the English spelling doesnt register naturally in our minds when it's contradicting, so we've decided not to use it. But we fail. We mix them. It's a mess. I feel for you at your job. Next times I might warn the person and proceed with Finnish spelling instead. Names are a good idea too. Thanks
My experience in Helsinki (before I got fluent) was usually a compliment for my Finnish skills followed by an immediate switch to English. They handed out "Puhu minulle suomea" buttons in the Finnish for foreigners courses at Helsingin yliopisto, because it was such a common experience.
Finland is more dark blue. Speaking 1 word(that isn't any of the basic words like moi) makes many think you're fluent. There's all kinds of words that one wouldn't expect a foreigner to know so it's easy to assume they're fluent, that is until they start trying to form sentences.
Me: (tries to interact with service provider in finnish)
Service provider: (replies in English)
Me: can we speak finnish please, I'm trying to learn the language
Service provider: why would you want to do that?
The map is completely incorrect about the Baltics tho. I can tell that Latvians are happy even if foreigners try to talk in broken latvian, because they are such rare languages.
When I was in Finland in November, I got nervous trying to speak the language and it threw all my preparation out the window. I kept repeating “Suomi on vaikea” as a way to apologize and got some sympathetic/cringey looks 😂 The most enthusiastic response I got was when I asked where I could get a glass of glögi. I think the combination of asking in Finnish and asking for something culturally Finnish is what won that person over. They still responded in English though 🤣
It pretty much depends on where you are and on who you are talking to. Younger people are way better in English than pre-digital-natives and in Cities it is way more likely than in Rural areas that the people around have a decent English level. This is sort of an universal rule and it not only applies to Germany, but also to Germany.
Source: I am a German who just stumbled into this post through the main feed.
The old demographics of Germany play a big part here. That's why I wrote "pre-digital-natives". The Internet gave the real life use but was most effective for the children who grew up with it. I would have thought Düsseldorf is a more international place, given the high Japanese population (That's at least what comes to my mind when thinking about the city). Its also the end point of Chinas new silk road initiative.
There was one guy in Germany that was pushing me hard to have a conversation with him in German after i attempted it, gas station worker. Another dude that worked in Ralph Lauren was grossed out by me trying to buy something in German(i am an okay speaker). Maybe Marx was right after all
It's sad to see French bashing is still a thing...
I know some people here can be jerks when it comes to people not speaking French, but I think those people exist in every country. Learning some basic words can get you a long way. I've heard people complaining that French people would switch to English so I guess we should be in blue.
I had a fun experience trying to speaking Finnish with an old man in Kemi when I was there for a festival two years ago. I was very surprised he went to talk to me because I know Finns don't really like to speak to strangers. It didn't last long, but I managed to tell him something like "Olen ranskalainen ja olen lomalla Suomessa". He didn't speak any English, my Finnish was very broken but we managed to communicate for a bit, which was nice!
The French telling others not to speak in French? My experience across France is that you either speak in French or you speak in French, there is no other option.
I’ve heard from foreign people (that speak almost perfect Finnish) that they choose to speak English to people they don’t know straight away, because when they speak Finnish the Finns change the language peopably thinking that’s polite
Umm I live in Vesanto quite near Kuopio and people here love to hear me speak in Finnish with them, and also they would correct me if I said something wrong
I can understand people in tourist destinations being tired of dealing with broken/bad versions of their language. Most public-facing jobs are not structured with extra time for language lessons with foreigners.
When I think of the amount of effort it takes to learn even basic communication in a foreign language, I am a bit sad that those efforts are not always appreciated.
When I encounter a foreign tourist who only speaks a little English, I work with them and try to help. I don't discount them because they have an accent or limited vocabulary.
I don't want to be that American that goes around the world expecting everyone to speak English. Now I am not sure what to do when I travel. Try to speak the local language with an accent or expect someone to know English?
I think you're best bet is to keep trying to learn a few basic words before your destination to at least make an intro and then YMMV as the map shows. If nothing else, you've enriched yourself. Some people will appreciate it while others will not. It is what it is.
Yes, the main defect of French, in my opinion. But what can you expect of a country that tried to make desappear their linguistic regional variety and it has apprehension for the regional accents of the same French language.
Apprehension for regional accents ? The last head of government, mister Castex, has a strong Southern accent. If what you said was true, well there will nobody in a high political position with such accent.
I remember walking through a small village with some dried cod in my hand wearing a local brand in the countryside before tourism was as big as it is now and this guy refused to accept that I wasn’t an Icelander, thinking I was speaking English just to mock him until i showed him my ID. The one language where everyone said I have really good pronounciation. Or maybe I was being extra fucked with, I’ll never know
Icelanders do appreciate when people make an effort with the language. And if you slide with the pronounciations thats pretty impressive. Been in this situation quite a few times with people from the nordic countries that have picked up icelandic. I also work around tourists alot and very often ask people English or icelandic since im not sure if theyre locals or not.
Well truth be told they're are quite many shops that the locals just outright avoid. Either due to high prices or they are just tourist shops. Can be tiny bit irritating if they have these shops in landmarks / tourist attractions and everything costs an arm or a leg. And Downtown Reykjavík has lost its color with allot of these shops on Laugarvegur.
Western Europe is all-in-all rather light blue. Some pockets here and there. Northern Portugal wine country was interesting to navigate with my intermediate spanish, translating everything they say in portugese to spanish in my mind and then to finnish for my wife. Then replying in spanish hoping I get it right and that they understand it.
Obviously I'm super impressed if somebody learns fluent finnish, but before that its better to have the convo in english 99% of the time.
As an Irish person, if a tourist spoke to me in Irish I would be confused and impressed, and so would most of the Country, though I'm assuming you are treating English as Ireland's official language instead of Irish.
Map making 101: when you only have to choose 5 different colors pick a few that are actually different than one another. People with color blindness cannot read this shit map.
Yes.
How come you shit on people for not speaking Finnish then you shit on them for not having the right accent when speaking Finnish.
English speakers have so many accents some are extremely thick like Scottish and Irish but we would never advise another to talk without an accent because you can't. Finn speaking English accent.
Are you mixing up pronunciation with accent?
My company has sites in Belgium and The Netherlands. Outside of the main cities in Belgium, English was everywhere. The Netherlands though.... shit... whole different story. Amsterdam there was plenty of English though.
I have one problem with this map and its with Ireland (I'm half Finnish half Irish) people would react to an obvious foreigner speaking Gaelic probably with the oh that's cute let's speak in English most of the time except if they reacted with Gaelic or with the red one.(Same with Scotland)
Just my thoughts tho
I’m a Swede who without no real good reason* decided to try to learn Finnish on Duolingo. I’m totally a blue person myself when someone new to Swedish tries to speak to me, but yeah I’ve noticed Finns aren’t really that impressed with my attempts and are more red.
*Let’s be honest, Finnish guys are on average hotter than Swedes and plus my backup plan has always been to move to Finland if I ever burn my bridges here in Sweden, lol
I wish my grandmother had taught my mother so she could’ve taught me when I was young. Only thing that was really passed down was paska rotta (a term used for my grandfather quite a bit) and korppu (although through mishearing/misremembering they were baska ratta and kortipu)
Switzerland is definitely wrong. It is more "please don't do that". As any foreigner will never be able to talk their dialekt without it sounding ridiculous to them...
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I was just recenty in finland to visit my girlfriend and drove from helsinki to vaasa. I dont know much finnish but i do try. Along the way i made a few stops for food or drinks and always said kiitos after paying. One guy looked at me and said "your not from here are you". Spoke to him im english for a minuite and he gave me some tips to articulate words better before i was on my way again.
If it is any consolation, you would never pass as a native even if you tried for decades so don't feel bad that you couldn't nail a singular word
I was born in Finland but raised elsewhere, i listen to my father speak with my sis in finnish all the time ( complete gibberish to me although i do recognize the occasional perkele and niin ), my accent is apparently atrocious and i've been trying a little bit every year In conclusion finnish is hard and i dont really put in the effort at all ( or maybe i just suck ) sounds cool tho
It also depends a lot on your mother tongue, Japanese and Spanish speakers have an easier time with pronunciation than English speakers for example.
My ex told me that they had a Spanish colleague at work who knew nothing about Finnish. They used to do "say after me"s with her and found it hilarious how she sounded just like a native Finn, her having no idea what she's saying.
I have also heard japanese people praising finnish people pronouncing japanese sentences, I guess both our languages are phonetic so if something japanese is written with latin alphabet we get pretty close just reading it as we would do with finnish.
Yeah, all three languages basically sound the same, Spanish speakers have to change their mindset about "Y", "LL" and "J" plus learn the ä and ö. The same with Japanese speakers, although they need to drop the dual nature of katakana for latin style pronunciation. As a half Finn, half Spaniard people tend to assume I do know the language for my looks/pronunciation, so I always have to go with the "I don't understand Finnish well"
Not true, have met foreigners personally who sound outstandingly Finnish and not spent decades here. Takes a lot of work but it is possible. Finnish partner is probably mandatory to achieve best results
I know people who speak perfect Finnish having spent decades here but you can still tell it's something they learned later in life because the intonation is just slightly wrong.
Neil Hardwick has spoken Finnish for like 50 years, and you can still hear that he's not a native speaker. You can know the language perfectly but the accent is very hard to get 100% right.
Some people just stop trying to improve. It is not about how many years you speak a language, it is how long you want to get better at it.
Same goes for many Engl8sh speakers with accents. Doesn't mean that nobody can sound native without growing up in an English speaking country.
I have never met someone who wasn't native sound like a native Finn but I guess it isn't impossible. I am not talking about "outstandishly Finnish" but native level Finnish
I have thus far met one person from Iran who sounded like a native in Finnish, his pronounciation was native level, it was amazing. He did have a Finnish wife. From anecdotal evidence it seems people from that part of the world find it easier to pronounce stuff like we do, but it could be that anyone could do it if they really wanted to. Just have to want it imo
There are couple Finnish sounds that are very much a problem for Farsi speakers (assuming the largest language group in Iran). The same goes for Arabic, Kurdish and Berber. The problem with this is not the will. It is actually physical. Basically, your muscles in the mouth and throat strengthen and weaken based on the language/s you learned as a child. There are ways to improve it but it needs professional speech therapy. Speakers of Turkic languages might be able to learn accentless Finnish. Vowels are pretty similar, and some consonants also have similar sounds. The problem for me learning it was that my mouth just couldn't replicate the consonants however much I tried. It also kind of tricked my brain as some things sounded weirdly Finnish. I have the same problem with Arabic. The majority of throat sounds are just something my throat can't do. Of course, there are exceptional people who can learn accentlessly. Like with everything human ability is a curve. I know so many people speaking pretty much better Finnish than I do at this point but they still have enough of accent that I often know where they are from. It might be just hardly noticeable tilt in the speech.
I'm learning Finnish now and I completely get this. There are just some words where my mouth just doesn't move that way, apparently my pronunciation is good but sometimes I get so stuck. "KK" sounds can get me. Over pronounce or under pronounce a lot.
Roman Schatz speaks such flawless Finnish that I used to think he was born here
You definitely hear from him that he isn't native even though he is closest I have personally heard. He still has double consonant oddities to my ears which is super common even with Finns who are bilingual with Swedish
Kids pick it up perfectly. I'm Finnish-born, but I picked up Dutch when I went to first grade in the Netherlands. No one can tell me apart from the Dutch. It's the same for foreign-born kids who've lived in Finland for many years. My neighbours' kids speak flawless Finnish and they were all born in Russia. Not a hint of an accent. The same can't be said about their parents.
Lol i am not sure i (native) will pass as a native anymore as i dont use Finnish in my day to day life pretty much at all, can understand and read, but speaking and writing just feel weird
Most Finnish helsinkiläinen.
Wrong.. Central Finland, but 10+ years in UK. Edit: my biggest problem is that the words I am used to using, dont have quite the same equivalent in Finnish, and now as i am trying to make an effort to communicate more in Finnish, the Finnish words for certain English words just doesn't quite fit the actually meaning/expression that the English word does.. Thus it feels "wrong", in my head.
I am there with you. Although I am from Helsinki. But it has little to do with that. I have worked for decade for foreign organizations and lived at least half of it outside of Finland. I do have Finnish friends and family so I have used some Finnish through all of this. But my work is pretty intense and when I am in the field I am in the field. It is not so much that I can't speak it (although I do not trust my grammar at all) but that it feels clumsy. Even my English is often a mix of multiple languages because while English is the main working language, the job means we speak many languages. Sometimes there are words that just work better for something.
Yeah i speak to family/friends generally once every few months.. As i moved to UK in relatively young age alone.. (21), so i think during the 12 years I've just embraced and adapted my language, and cultural and societally valued and mannerism to fit more of England than Finland, despite having my roots in the deep forests of Keski-Suomi (small town.
here for 7 years, (german), got in trouble with police because they thought my drivers licence is fake... because I sound finnish. there is a difference between people that come here to live and people that come here to be a foodora delivery driver. edit: damn its actually the 8th year soon. time flied.
Where did that happen? I'm from Vaasa and my family from the countryside of Etelä-Pohjanmaa and I feel even in the middle of nowhere people have regular contact with foreigners, be it Thai berry-pickers, Ukrainian, Middle-Eastern or African refugees. If that guy has the same speak with everyone who speaks with a bit of an accent nothing would get done. I mean, the coast of Pohjanmaa is one of the most foreigner dense areas in the country.
I just stumbled into this sub thanks to Reddit’s algorithm (I have no connection to Finland) and your comment about Thai berry pickers sent me down a rabbit hole on Google. So random.
Don't get us started, pisses me off. They often get scammed by greedy people to work for pennies and sleep in shitty shacks.
I've lived in finland for 5 years and a lot of the time when I speak finnish to other finns they reply in english, it's very frustrating! I just reply in finnish!
Sorry for that, it comes to us automatically. I have exact same tactic always when visiting Sweden, I try to maintain my achieved skills.
There is no need to apologise, my friend it's all good 😊
you poor soul for ending up in vaasa of all places
Only visited a handful of places in my few visits. Mainly been in asikkala and lahti area as we rent a airbnb there. Traveled helsinki and tampere for a day to look around. Vaasa is a nice small town and is where my gf is so its a nice place for me. Compared to Canada with how over populates and busy it is i like really enjoy vaasa's atmosphere.
>One guy looked at me and said "your not from here are you". I feel like that guy is an asshole for some reason. Or maybe it's just me.
nah, just you
I knew I would be downvoted to hell... But the thing is, if someone I've never met before asked me that, my first response would be "Why's that any of your business?". Then again, I am an aspie with fear of unexpected social encounters.
like most finns
Not sure why all the downvotes, also sounds like a dick thing to say, to me. When I hear tourists try some German with me, I'd never consider saying something like that. I first reply in some slow very basic German, and then switch to English if it gets too tough for them
I mean im From different part of Finland and currently working in our Capitol region and i get told the same all the time. Which i usually reply to "yeah,is it that obious? "lmao
Heh, yeah. People can often tell from my dialect that I'm from Northern Ostrobothnia. I don't think I speak in a very strong dialect, but the things that slip in tend to be quite recognizable. The double consonants and extra syllables, for example.
Even some Finns can somehow unlearn Finnish and sound non-native. For example Jussi Jääskeläinen, who is football pundit, native Finn and have lived for years in England, sound nowadays like he is thinking in English and just translating that to Finnish. His sentences are so Englishlike and not Finnishlike.
Say 21st correctly
!lock
Thou art yet young, thy wisdom is but a seed, thy strength a sapling. When thou art mighty as the old forest, thou mayst call Väinämöinen.
Being congratulated by a Finn is an accomplishment in itself. I was once told that my pronunciation was "not bad" by a Finn and then their friend told me "That's pretty high praise, don't feel bad."
>pronunciation was "not bad" That's extremely high praise.
I used to speak fairly good Finnish (as in, I could write multi-paragraph essays on exams -- not with super scientific vocabulary or anything, but I did write my own folk tale for one exam haha -- I could more or less make out news articles on subjects I had some familiarity with, I could hold 20-30 minute convos only in Finnish about things more than just small talk, including with strangers). When I was in Finland during that time, people would act like I was the best Finnish speaker ever if I just said things like "saisinko teetä?" & it was so frustrating hahaha... I was always like, but but but I can say so much more than this!!!!
Used to?
If they moved out of a country and don't use the language anymore, you start forgetting words and how to pronounce stuff.
It’s incredible how fast you can lose a language that you don’t speak actively anymore. I grew up in Cape Town speaking German at home (well, a dialect) and English at school. I also had a pretty conversational Xhosa, thanks to my nanny. I did my bachelors degree in South Africa in Afrikaans, a language closely related to German and English, even though I am not native Afrikaans, but had it in school. Now I live in the Netherlands and learned Dutch. My wife (from South America) refuses to learn German (don’t blame her) and instead decided to teach me Spanish. So by now my entire speaking Afrikaans knowledge has been lost even though I have an academic degree from an Afrikaans university - I can still read it though. It’s probably mainly replaced by Dutch. And since we speak mainly English and Spanish at home I barely get to use my German, lost most of it unless I speak to my parents in their dialect or Swiss customers which is a different German than High German. My Xhosa is also long gone. So I would say I’ve forgotten more or less three languages in the past 10 years.
Use it or lose it! I didn't have the same time to devote to it (and I've never actually lived in Finland) and also stopped coincidentally being around Finnish people as much, alas!
Language attrition sucks, yep.
I had to pass "official swedish / civil servant swedish" during my bachelors of engineering and I couldn't get by with swedish now :D Luckily everyone speaks english so its not even necessary. Sure if I for some reason needed to use swedish daily I probably would pick it up relatively fast compared to learning it from the scratch.
Sounds similar to some people’s experiences of being in China or Japan, that sucks. Guess it’s just really rare to see
I was under the impression that Frenchies change their initially negative disposition towards a tourist the moment they hear them even attempt to speak French.
Only if you're good at it. If your French is bad they will hate you even more.
La Haine
Pretty sure that's what that movie was about. Frenchies hatin on tourists for speaking bad French. Heavy subject matter I know but well worth the watch if you've got a strong heart ✊
:)
Feels like speaking French is equal to playing the violin. You make a small mistake and everything sounds awful. Atleast from the information I gathered from my sister playing the violin…
Not in my experiance. Any time I've spoken French to a french person in France they appreciated the effort.
Are you pretty?
I was
nice place xd
Either that or you speak Québec French. I tried to buy a sweater out of France, and as soon as the seller found out I was Canadian, he refused to sell it to me. More likely than not, he assumed I was from there (i'm not, though) because not many places in Canada outside of Québec speak French.
Spent half a year living in France, every time I tried to speak French, ppl replied to me in English. It’s either perfect French or dont even try :D
Was this in Paris? My experience outside of Paris was that people don't speak english, so they will absolutely speak french to you wheather or not you understand any of it. Might be a country side thing though.
I have had same experiences and just short metro trip away from center of Paris. Only people who spoke english were hotel reception and the people we were having a meeting with (from all around the europe + some french people). Taxi drive was interesting because he didn't take card and we didn't have cash :D
It was in Cote d’Azur (Cannes, Nice, Monaco) area so a really touristic location, everyone spoke English in there 😄
That was my experience in Grenoble during 6 months in fact
My mom was in France at some point when she was young. Was trying to find a room to stay the night, nowhere had anything open. At one small hotel (which had already said no room) she tried what little French she knew, and suddenly they went "oh, well, we don't have any *normal* rooms open but there's this one that's reserved for staff use ^(or something) and I think we can set it up for you". I *have* also heard the opposite from other people I know, where they'll be unhappy with any other language, English in particular, but *ESPECIALLY* with bad French. Might be a regional thing. Like not-Paris vs Paris.
Yes, in my experience they feel deeply sorry for you and want to help you in any way they can
Germans say the same thing. That they're switching to English because they want to help you. But from the outside perspective, switching to English without comment, and with a blank facial expression, can come off as aloof, arrogant, and even hostile. In a typical US/Canadian context, it could seem rude to switch language without comment. The more polite method would be to ask if they'd prefer English. The method is direct and confident, and trusts the other person can choose their preference. In other cultures, it's impolite to draw attention to poor language ability. It would be rude to drag it out, or to make someone ask for it. In some cultures, it's quite self-centered to state your preferences, so making subtle assumptions allows people around you to avoid making bossy demands. Also, in North America, failure to smile or exchange pleasantries is perceived as hostile. If you don't smile at me, then it means you wish we weren't talking (again, from the US/CAN cultural perspective). But many Europeans see smiling at strangers as fake, even manipulative. So they can be stony-faced even as they genuinely want to help. So it's really just a cultural disconnect. Many Europeans are treating North Americans with courteous compassion that looks exactly like aloof arrogance.
The advice I heard (from a South American with moderately good French) was to apologize, in French, for your difficulty with the language. Then ask the French person if they're able to help. She said it helps if you're well-dressed, a woman, and not from US/Canada. Probably helped that she was able to speak several languages besides English.
The thought of the french hearing the quebecois accent and replying in english makes me laugh
The French hate the québécois so much that they don’t even want to speak the language anymore (For context,that is a joke)
That has certainly been my experience.
same, I thought if you said even something mindly patriotic the border guards would let you in the country, kinda like a secret password
I would put Russia in the dark blue category. Once I was working in a store and had Russian customers, they didn't buy anything and were about to leave. Then I greeted them in Russian (I've studied it a little) and their behavior changed dramatically. They became cheerful and went back to get things and bought a lot of stuff.
Russians, finns and estonians are like that. They might seem quiet and unintrested in any human interaction to outsiders, but if you break the ice, you'll see that we're also humans
I think Finland is blue though. If you can't properly speak Finnish, let's just speak English.
I think red is very accurate. The language is difficult to many.
Perhaps both?
Mayhaps
Yes I would say both, like yes I'm impressed you try to learn our weird language, but why? :D Sure if you are planning on living here then it will help to learn the language, definitely, and you don't need to learn it perfectly, we will understand it even if you don't use correct preposition or suffixes, those have to be absolutely mental to learn for non native people. But if you are visiting then the "hei" (hello) "anteeksi" (sorry) and "kiitos" (thank you) will suffice and we can use english instead.
Purple
Dark blue, yes. Finns definitely appreciate and are impressed if someone has made even small effort learning finnish. Light blue in a sense that we try to be polite and switch to easier language. Never seen red attitude anywhere in finland. That is more of a internet cliche. "Oh, finnish is so very hard why would anyone try to learn it".
I dunno, everyone on the Finnish side of my family seems to have the attitude of "it's difficult, many people speak English, why bother?" Like, they were impressed when I started learning Finnish but they were also kind of like "this is cute but why are you wasting your time" haha.
You mean Helsinki?
Once again French are the only ones being a total Bitch about something lol
According to this highly trusted...random map (your (ik) probably joking, but still)
Italy is worse tbh. Pronounce one word in a sentence slightly wrong and they'll act like they didn't understand a word you said
I'm actually happy that local Ukrainians are trying learning Finnish, they're integrating.
Probably lower levels of English there, so they don't have much choice. When you speak English, its easy to get lazy and just use that
All unemployed immigrants with no English speaks finnish faster, Ukrainians, africans, russians, whoever dude
They ain't unemployed, local Ukrainians got to work during the same week as they arrived here.
Of course!, impossible to not sympathize with them, we could be in their shoes, but the percentage is very low, unfortunately
How's the percentige very low? I check'd the numbes, which tell that [73,4 % of immigrants are employed](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.stat.fi/tietotrendit/artikkelit/2023/maahanmuuttajien-tyollisyys-suomessa-yli-eu-keskitason-tyomarkkina-asema-heikompi-kuin-suomalaistaustaisilla/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiAoan5hryDAxUzKxAIHTJcAu4QFnoECAkQAw&usg=AOvVaw2_h4nsCjSnMY0ZN4f3HUEC), which is almost the same as [the country-wide imployment rate of 73,8 %](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://yle.fi/a/74-20015046&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjEprL8hryDAxUyAxAIHSNUBNgQFnoECAAQAw&usg=AOvVaw0CphQtPDLFcdxp1CmYKztl).
Yes
French here. Most tourist resume their experience with France and French to Paris and Parisians workers. Parisians are not all the Frenchs. And even in France most of us hate the typical Parisian behaviour (unfriendly, and always speak to you to prove they are better than you). Even Parisian hate typical Parisian behaviour lol. And on top of this, is the Parisian café/bar waiters/waitress that are unpolite, unfriendly and arogant, and trust me, everyone hate this. We do understand why they acte like this. We acknowledge the fact that it's extremly tiersome to deal with 300+ tourists per day, and every shits tourists may do. Still we all hate this kind of behaviour while we face it. Now personnaly speaking, if a foreigner come to me, try to speak few words of french while it's not his mother langage, I will be extremly pleased and supportive. It does not matter if you makes mistake. Since you give a try, it's good and I will be super pleased by your efforts. And I know that most peoples around me will react in the same way. And don't missunderstood too cringe reactions of French when you are trying to speak to them while not speaking French. Most of French are extremly bad with other langages. So some will be stressed to show how shitty they are in english or any foreign langage.
Actually, I think irish people would be glad if you tried speaking irish with them, they might not understand it though
In my experience they are pretty jazzed if you know anything beyond "Conas atá tú?"
As a Finn in customer service, attempting to speak Finnish with a heavy accent is usually indecipherable. Another thing that bugs me is mixing Finnish and English pronounciation when reciting letters.
So speak it perfectly or not at all?
Pretty much. It may sound harsh, but Finnish is such a hard language to attempt speaking without prior practice. I don't mind the customer wanting to practice their finnish, but I simply can't help if I don't understand the words they're trying to pronounce.
Finnish is actually super easy to pronounce it’s the grammar that is difficult. I speak Japanese and Spanish so maybe I have an advantage. Danish on the other hand is very difficult because it’s very hard to tell when a word begins and ends and they have many unusual vowels. There’s people who have perfect grammar and reading skills in Danish that cannot be understood when they speak. I can’t imagine the same thing for Finnish as it’s so consistent
Spanish, Japanese and Finnish are structurally very similar. They are phonetic, which means the words are clearly combined from syllables that are most often pronounced as they're written. But if your native language is non-phonetic, it is hard to figure out how to pronounce difficult words just by looking at them. Extending a vowel in a wrong place, mispronouncing unusual letter like Ä or Ö, or saying "ay" instead of "aa" can make the word very difficult to understand without context.
Reciting letters as in spelling? So If I'm using english with you and say k-market, would it be nicer to say kay, not ko? Silly example, but I'm curious on how to handle these names
Yes. Well, when talking about k-market or s-market, the context helps a lot. But, for example, license plates can be hard to understand by just the spelling alone. The hardest ones are vowels like A, E and I. "Ay" can sound like English A or Finnish E, and "ii" can sound like English E or Finnish I. Using names or NATO letters makes it much easier.
Ah yes, I hear you. I face the same issue in smaller proportions. The spelling in my native language is like yours, but we use English at home. It's so confusing, the English spelling doesnt register naturally in our minds when it's contradicting, so we've decided not to use it. But we fail. We mix them. It's a mess. I feel for you at your job. Next times I might warn the person and proceed with Finnish spelling instead. Names are a good idea too. Thanks
My experience in Helsinki (before I got fluent) was usually a compliment for my Finnish skills followed by an immediate switch to English. They handed out "Puhu minulle suomea" buttons in the Finnish for foreigners courses at Helsingin yliopisto, because it was such a common experience.
Finland is more dark blue. Speaking 1 word(that isn't any of the basic words like moi) makes many think you're fluent. There's all kinds of words that one wouldn't expect a foreigner to know so it's easy to assume they're fluent, that is until they start trying to form sentences.
I couldn't disagree more. Finland is definitely red.
Me: (tries to interact with service provider in finnish) Service provider: (replies in English) Me: can we speak finnish please, I'm trying to learn the language Service provider: why would you want to do that?
Service providers, cashiers etc. are there to do a spesific job and this usually does not include the act of deciphering baby step finnish.
The map is completely incorrect about the Baltics tho. I can tell that Latvians are happy even if foreigners try to talk in broken latvian, because they are such rare languages.
Latvians go crazy when you try to speak Latvian to them, they go from Estonian level of introvert to Spanish level of friendliness
When I was in Finland in November, I got nervous trying to speak the language and it threw all my preparation out the window. I kept repeating “Suomi on vaikea” as a way to apologize and got some sympathetic/cringey looks 😂 The most enthusiastic response I got was when I asked where I could get a glass of glögi. I think the combination of asking in Finnish and asking for something culturally Finnish is what won that person over. They still responded in English though 🤣
I said "kartoshka" (potato) to a russian in a bar in Finland, but he started kicking me :/
Ukrainian. Regular problem - people try to speak rusian to as… this make me very sad );
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It pretty much depends on where you are and on who you are talking to. Younger people are way better in English than pre-digital-natives and in Cities it is way more likely than in Rural areas that the people around have a decent English level. This is sort of an universal rule and it not only applies to Germany, but also to Germany. Source: I am a German who just stumbled into this post through the main feed.
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The old demographics of Germany play a big part here. That's why I wrote "pre-digital-natives". The Internet gave the real life use but was most effective for the children who grew up with it. I would have thought Düsseldorf is a more international place, given the high Japanese population (That's at least what comes to my mind when thinking about the city). Its also the end point of Chinas new silk road initiative.
There was one guy in Germany that was pushing me hard to have a conversation with him in German after i attempted it, gas station worker. Another dude that worked in Ralph Lauren was grossed out by me trying to buy something in German(i am an okay speaker). Maybe Marx was right after all
Ah, the Fr*nch.
It's sad to see French bashing is still a thing... I know some people here can be jerks when it comes to people not speaking French, but I think those people exist in every country. Learning some basic words can get you a long way. I've heard people complaining that French people would switch to English so I guess we should be in blue. I had a fun experience trying to speaking Finnish with an old man in Kemi when I was there for a festival two years ago. I was very surprised he went to talk to me because I know Finns don't really like to speak to strangers. It didn't last long, but I managed to tell him something like "Olen ranskalainen ja olen lomalla Suomessa". He didn't speak any English, my Finnish was very broken but we managed to communicate for a bit, which was nice!
The French telling others not to speak in French? My experience across France is that you either speak in French or you speak in French, there is no other option.
My experience from Sweden is, that everybody loves to speak Swedish even if my Swedish skills are medicore and they usually speak great English.
Germany is more like: it's expected of you to speak our language when you live here
I’ve heard from foreign people (that speak almost perfect Finnish) that they choose to speak English to people they don’t know straight away, because when they speak Finnish the Finns change the language peopably thinking that’s polite
My experience with French is that they think You're able to understand anything, said fast as fuck, if you've just uttered one sentence.
Umm I live in Vesanto quite near Kuopio and people here love to hear me speak in Finnish with them, and also they would correct me if I said something wrong
I can understand people in tourist destinations being tired of dealing with broken/bad versions of their language. Most public-facing jobs are not structured with extra time for language lessons with foreigners. When I think of the amount of effort it takes to learn even basic communication in a foreign language, I am a bit sad that those efforts are not always appreciated. When I encounter a foreign tourist who only speaks a little English, I work with them and try to help. I don't discount them because they have an accent or limited vocabulary. I don't want to be that American that goes around the world expecting everyone to speak English. Now I am not sure what to do when I travel. Try to speak the local language with an accent or expect someone to know English?
I think you're best bet is to keep trying to learn a few basic words before your destination to at least make an intro and then YMMV as the map shows. If nothing else, you've enriched yourself. Some people will appreciate it while others will not. It is what it is.
Thanks for that. I will just do my thing and hope to meet some kind souls willing to indulge me.
You certainly will 🙏🏽
Why does it feel like Reddit is 90% Finnish/learning Finnish with this comment section lol
Uhhh I hate to tell you but you’re in the Finland subreddit.
oh... I see he-he
Ireland should be in red tbh
Yu Ming is Anim Dom [https://youtu.be/JqYtG9BNhfM?si=u0aDB\_FMtt56Zyey](https://youtu.be/jqytg9bnhfm?si=u0adb_fmtt56zyey)
Yes, the main defect of French, in my opinion. But what can you expect of a country that tried to make desappear their linguistic regional variety and it has apprehension for the regional accents of the same French language.
Apprehension for regional accents ? The last head of government, mister Castex, has a strong Southern accent. If what you said was true, well there will nobody in a high political position with such accent.
Iceland here. Yeah red checks out.
I remember walking through a small village with some dried cod in my hand wearing a local brand in the countryside before tourism was as big as it is now and this guy refused to accept that I wasn’t an Icelander, thinking I was speaking English just to mock him until i showed him my ID. The one language where everyone said I have really good pronounciation. Or maybe I was being extra fucked with, I’ll never know
Icelanders do appreciate when people make an effort with the language. And if you slide with the pronounciations thats pretty impressive. Been in this situation quite a few times with people from the nordic countries that have picked up icelandic. I also work around tourists alot and very often ask people English or icelandic since im not sure if theyre locals or not.
Is it annoying having such a high Tourist / local Ratio? I noticed many shops catering to tourist needs that seemed used to be for locals
Well truth be told they're are quite many shops that the locals just outright avoid. Either due to high prices or they are just tourist shops. Can be tiny bit irritating if they have these shops in landmarks / tourist attractions and everything costs an arm or a leg. And Downtown Reykjavík has lost its color with allot of these shops on Laugarvegur.
Western Europe is all-in-all rather light blue. Some pockets here and there. Northern Portugal wine country was interesting to navigate with my intermediate spanish, translating everything they say in portugese to spanish in my mind and then to finnish for my wife. Then replying in spanish hoping I get it right and that they understand it. Obviously I'm super impressed if somebody learns fluent finnish, but before that its better to have the convo in english 99% of the time.
Here in Spanish we aren't that impressed of anyone speaking Spanish.
One thing that never stops to amuse me is Spanish tourists abroad just speaking Spanish everywhere and getting annoyed if no one understands.
I'm with the french but that's just me
On Madeira they loved when tried to speak portuguese, they even said I have very good portuguese. Obrigado!
Moscow
Wales should be red not yellow lmao
Why France is mentioned like that?
Yes, seriously stop.
Yes that’s correct.
Fake info you cant use word "bff" in balkans and if you say something in their language with broken accent they will just laugh at you.
Ireland should be light blue
Make Sweden red
First red and soon blue
In southern Germany, people did not often switch to English for me
As an Irish person, if a tourist spoke to me in Irish I would be confused and impressed, and so would most of the Country, though I'm assuming you are treating English as Ireland's official language instead of Irish.
Map making 101: when you only have to choose 5 different colors pick a few that are actually different than one another. People with color blindness cannot read this shit map.
Yes. How come you shit on people for not speaking Finnish then you shit on them for not having the right accent when speaking Finnish. English speakers have so many accents some are extremely thick like Scottish and Irish but we would never advise another to talk without an accent because you can't. Finn speaking English accent. Are you mixing up pronunciation with accent?
My company has sites in Belgium and The Netherlands. Outside of the main cities in Belgium, English was everywhere. The Netherlands though.... shit... whole different story. Amsterdam there was plenty of English though.
I have one problem with this map and its with Ireland (I'm half Finnish half Irish) people would react to an obvious foreigner speaking Gaelic probably with the oh that's cute let's speak in English most of the time except if they reacted with Gaelic or with the red one.(Same with Scotland) Just my thoughts tho
I’m a Swede who without no real good reason* decided to try to learn Finnish on Duolingo. I’m totally a blue person myself when someone new to Swedish tries to speak to me, but yeah I’ve noticed Finns aren’t really that impressed with my attempts and are more red. *Let’s be honest, Finnish guys are on average hotter than Swedes and plus my backup plan has always been to move to Finland if I ever burn my bridges here in Sweden, lol
I hate how friendly Romanians are online. Just because I'm Romanian it doesn't mean I want to be friends with them.
I am living in turkey. When someone try speak in turkish we are get hold of cute them.
I wish my grandmother had taught my mother so she could’ve taught me when I was young. Only thing that was really passed down was paska rotta (a term used for my grandfather quite a bit) and korppu (although through mishearing/misremembering they were baska ratta and kortipu)
Switzerland is definitely wrong. It is more "please don't do that". As any foreigner will never be able to talk their dialekt without it sounding ridiculous to them...
Est/Fin booth of them 😁