Why I started this blog

The idea for this blog came to my mind after seeing some textbooks my friends have for learning Finnish. Somehow the dialoques and sentence examples seemed very strange and at times ridiculous. Why? Because nobody speaks like that.

Disclaimer: It is important to learn the standard Finnish. I’m not saying people should stop learning it, I only want to draw attention to the spoken language that seems to be quite overlooked. If you know of good material for learning it, I want to hear all about it.

Regional differences between the dialects can be rather big at times. I myself have noticed this as I’m originally from the East and later moved to the Southwest: sometimes I use words that can have a different meaning for me and to my friends who are from the south or the west of Finland. For exampple. The verb ”viruttaa” means to stretch in where I come from, but to people in Turku that is to rinse. You may imagine the confusion and the laughs I’ve had.

Now, no need to panic: most of us Finns will try to tone down our dialects when speaking with a foreigner, but if you happen to know spoken language, even a little, you will get so much appreciation from Finns.

So, my goal with this blog is to shed some light on the spoken Finnish, how it differs from the standard language, the cultural context of using the language, perhaps some regional differences in the spoken language… If there’s something you’d like me to write about, let me know!

Welcome to the magical world of Finnish, there is so much to talk about.