Oh, my, I hope this sinks in to my English brain! Tuomas, got it! Every letter, distinctly. Emppu, Emp-pu, almost. Mountain man! Marrrrkoh. (In English) Kai (Shorter names should be easier) Regular beats to the letter :) Juk-ka, every letter counts. With no false emphasis. (I'm guilty). Tarja (We had a very loud purring cat). Mr Hemingway! Tampere (trying to keep it even, Floorrrr. Troy! You are very understanding aand forgiving.
Sometimes C is pronounced like S in Finnish, like Emilia did in this video, but sometimes it is K. There are some rules about this, but I can't remember those...I just trust my intuition. Normally in Finnish we pronounce every letter the same way, no matter what the word is. And because the letters are always pronounced the same, I coded my own text to speech program at the age of 13 or 14 with very basic coding skills (and with some of help from library...like the real library with books...this was around 1989-1990).
I cracked up at the "no Tarzans in Nightwish"😂😂 As a Finn I came to this video to see how you explaine the pronunciation 😅 (I know how to say them but I don't know how to explain it to other people) Since I get often asked how to pronounce Finnish names... mainly the names of Nightwish members....especially Tarja's name. There are 2 different letters that can be hard for english speakers to pronounce, R and J. That reminds me of the time when Tarja joked that she'll make fan shirst where it says how to pronounce her name.😅 She said that she can always tell where people are from by how they pronounce her name. Also, I don’t know if you have noticed, but Floor is quite good at pronouncing Finnish names. She understands that there is no cutting corners when you pronounce Finnish😁
My head always reverts to my native Afrikaans pronunciation of foreign names and words. Which is, like you explained; every letter is pronounced exactly as it is read. Very happy to know that I've always pronounced their names correctly 💯😅
Thank you. I appreciate that you took the time to place all of this inforation in one spot. I freely admit to being forgetful, and it will be nice to have this video to refer to.
This was one of the best times I've ever had in class! 😂 Seriously, your explanation at the beginning of how the Finnish language works was extremely invaluable. I took one year of Spanish in school, many, many years ago. I didn't retain much, but it seems like Finnish and Spanish are much alike, in that they have simple rules, with vowels always pronounced the same, and both even use rolling Rs. I don't know why English has to be so complicated. It must be tough learning it as a second language. Fun fact: When Irene Jansen (Floor's sister) made her promo video for the latest Star One album, she introduced herself, pronouncing her last name with the English J and not a Y! She didn't seem to do it as a joke, so maybe she goes all in when speaking English? I've only ever heard Floor pronounce it with the Y sound.
That's not bad at all! In "phonetic Dutch" the VG's name went like "florrr ie-anzènn". Sounds great and we know whom it concerns, which is all that matters in the end. There's a video with Simone Simons doing all of the foreign pronunciations of her name. Clearly shows that she likes all of them and doesn't care about the "correct" pronunciation in Dutch. Which makes sense, I guess. In the land of Van Gogh we can't afford to be too picky ;)
For a Dutchie tho, it sounds like in Finnish the V doesn't really count and is pronounced as we would a very soft "w". In the NW part of NL the V in Vuorinen would sound almost like an F and elsewhere it's like in "very". The fun really starts when ppl try to respectfully pronounce names/places from all over the world in their respective native tongues. Try: "Emppu Vuorinen (FI) and Floor Jansen (NL) went to Paris (FR) where they had latte macchiato (IT) and Apfelstrudel (DE). Could get even funnier with increasing variety. That's why - in an international English dominant setting - I prefer e.g. people from the US to just stick with Americanized names and don't make a fuss about it. Cheers from Amsterdam! 🤘
This is a linguistic comment... I guess I'll make a stop here. It would require a massive wall of text to explain the difference between Dutch and Finnish phonetics, and nobody wants that, right? (RIGHT?!) Well, not here anyway. 🤓 It seems that the concept of voiced vs. voiceless consonants is somewhat different in Germanic languages compared to most others. One thing is certain though: you have to RRRRRoll yeRRRRRR aRRRRRse! Something you don't seem to do much in Dutch. As someone who can pronounce words correctly in most European languages, I normally.. don't. It feels awkward and embarrassing because people often think that you're a smartass and just showing off. The kind of people I usually deal with anyway.. So I normally use the proper English pronunciation: the Brummie one.😎 Except Van Gogh of course. The incorrect pronunciation of Van Gogh really, really makes my ears bleed!
@@noneofyerbeeswax8194 I obvioulsy could google it, but because you are here, can you tell how Van Gogh is pronounced? I guess the 'Gogh' part is quite tricky for non-Dutch people... Dutch has so distinquish throat sounds, I don't know if they are counted as fricatives or what (I can't imagine i could produce those!), but if 'Gogh' inculdes those sounds, well, yeah, I understand why your ears do bleed when foreigners try to say that name. (My ears bleed every time when someone says 'sauna'. It's childish from me to not tolerate the English pronaunciation of the word, but it is so important word in Finnish culture, that the English version just feels distracting. It doesn't hurt my feelings though :D Just ears.)
@@elinajarvinen4311 OK, here we go: The 'v' here is pronounced as an 'f'. The 'a' is nearly identical to the Swedish long 'a', it's rather dark, back-in-the-mouth. It's not held any longer than the short 'a' though. The 'n' is just an 'n', but it's not emphasized (it's often dropped at the end of Dutch words). Both 'g' are indeed guttural sounds, pronounced more or less like the German 'ch'. There are many variations. In the southern dialects of Dutch, this sound is soft, almost like a 'h'. So you can use the Finnish 'h', and it's gonna sound closer to Floor Jansen's Brabants accent. :) The 'h' at the end is silent, of course. The 'o' is short. You won't be far off if you pronounce it like the Finnish short 'o'. And yes, "sawna" instead of "sauna" sounds disgusting.😝
@@noneofyerbeeswax8194 "One thing is certain though: you have to RRRRRoll yeRRRRRR aRRRRRse! Something you don't seem to do much in Dutch." For sure! Problem is tho, that in Holla.. pardon, ze Netherlands we have five different "R"sezes. Two of them are rolled. One exactly like the Finnish one, and the other more in the back w/o getting into ze French one, which we also have. All depends on region. So there's front-to-back 1) Finnish tongue rolled 2) Leidse r = quite "English" 3) Gooise r = sorta "American" 4) Voiced uvular trill (rolled in the back) style 5) Voiced uvular fricative, the "French" type. Some regions have one style: front rolled all the time. Some have a combination of rolled (anlaut) and flowing (auslaut). Others flowing r all time. Again others do fricative (an) and flowing (aus). And lastly there's Dutchies who do fricative all the time. This is a rough sketch oc. Trve Dutch 'R'thusiasts r able to distinguish 10+ different types combined by many in triple r use instead of just two. We should ask Floor about where she'd fit in this R-rating. My guess is that (since she moved quite a bit when young) she can do them all & within once sentence even. Goes some ways to explain her crazy good enunciation of whatever lyrics are thrown her way by Twomas ;)
De Jansen pronunciation is reasonably ok. De name Floor however has a long O vowel, as signified by the double O. The exact pronunciation of the R matters less (that is more a dialectal choice in the NL), but never overdo it, keep it light, rolled or trilled.
@@pekkakarppinen1608 (Kyllä pienelle itsekehulle on aina paikkansa! Paitsi ehkä Satakunnassa. ) Me too, so fluent that everyone asked when I started to study Finnish in the university: “But why! You are so fluent in Finnish!” The comment every Finn must get used to when they study Finnish 😆 I guess it is the same joke in every country with people who are studying their own language? Or is it? Mene ja tiedä.
Ajattelin ensin tehdä niin, mutta totesin, että en tee yhtään vaikeammaksi katsojalle tai itselle, kun jos tulisikin vahingossa painotettua jotain tavua korosten/väärin tms., en tahtoisi vastuulleni SEN vuoksi väärin lausuttuja nimiä. 😅
@@Harvinaisenkauniselama Fair enough. Olen perinyt vanhemmiltani Elokuva Aitan matrikkeleja Hollywood tähdistä 40-50 -luvuilta, joissa on mukana englannin kielen lausuntaohjeet suomeksi, esim. Lana Turner = Laana Töönö. Se on hauska. Ja sitten nämä meidän automiesten suosikit. Minulla oli aikoinaan ihan hyvä pikkuauto Opel Corsa- siis suomalaisittain joko Opel Korsa tai Opel Sorsa. No, tiedän että Floorilla oli aikoinaan Honda Civic, siis meille Honda Sivik tai Honda Kivik. Että semmoista.
Do the "ai" in Holopainen is almost like an English long I (eye) but you can actually hear the two separate letters. Kai is actually Kaitsu so that U is pronounced the the one in Emppu? Edit: andvas I understandbit, the most important town in Finland is pronounced "Kittay" not "Kitty"?
Correct! Just like ”eye” in Holopainen. And yes, with Kaitsu, a sharp S and then U like in Emppu. AND I FORGOT KITEE! Its… Oh my… I need to do a Kitee video. 😅 Help. 😅 KI-TEE. KI- is like ”key”, but short one: there is only one I, so end it short. And then -TEE is like in TEEMU Selänne (first example that came to mind, sorry) or two Emppu kind of Es in there. So, it does not sound like English ”Tea”, but like sttetching Teeeeeelevision or EEEEEEMPPU for double effect. I hope this helps? ((I cannot believe I remembered Tampere, but forgot The Important One!)
The 'ai' is similar to the ay/a diphthong in Brummie or Australian accent ("G'day mate" :) The Finnish 'u' is always pronounced like in northern English dialects. Most importantly: the length and quality of a vowel or a consonant are indicated in writing. A double one is always long, and a single one short. There is no vowel reduction in Finnish. The quality and length of a vowel does not depend on its position in the word, nor on whether it's stressed or not. Stress is always on the first syllable. There are also diphthongs and even triphthongs, but I'm not getting into this here. Overall, Finnish is a very phonetically consistent language. Very easy to read. Very hard to understand.😂
Yes, ‘ai’ in HolopAInen is like ‘eye’ in English. And ‘u’ in Kaitsu is similar with the ‘u’ in Emppu. Something like the last sound of ‘too’. (All the Finnish ‘u’s are like that. Only difference can be in length, and that you can see from writing. One ‘u’ in Emppu and Kaitsu, so it is a short. Two ‘u’s in word ‘kuu’ (means ‘moon’), so you say it as long.) Kitee certainly is not pronounced like ‘kitty’, you are right! I’m not sure how ‘kittay’ would exactly sound, but I’m sure it’s more close. The beginning of Kitee (KIT) is like the beginning of ‘kitty’. But you can’t actually think that word like KIT-EE. It’s KI-TEE. The double-e at the end of Kitee is like ‘e’ in ‘end’.
@@noneofyerbeeswax8194 I guess it was the repeated statement that every letter counts followed by what sounded like a diphthong that caught my attention to ask which it is.
Oh, my, I hope this sinks in to my English brain!
Tuomas, got it! Every letter, distinctly.
Emppu, Emp-pu, almost. Mountain man!
Marrrrkoh. (In English)
Kai (Shorter names should be easier) Regular beats to the letter :)
Juk-ka, every letter counts. With no false emphasis. (I'm guilty).
Tarja (We had a very loud purring cat). Mr Hemingway!
Tampere (trying to keep it even,
Floorrrr.
Troy!
You are very understanding aand forgiving.
As an Englishman I came here to learn how to pronounce Troy Donockley in Finnish. Was not disappointed 🤣
Thank you for a good laugh! Really, your comment made my laugh tears in my eyes 😂
Excellent! Thank you! This made my day!
Sometimes C is pronounced like S in Finnish, like Emilia did in this video, but sometimes it is K. There are some rules about this, but I can't remember those...I just trust my intuition. Normally in Finnish we pronounce every letter the same way, no matter what the word is. And because the letters are always pronounced the same, I coded my own text to speech program at the age of 13 or 14 with very basic coding skills (and with some of help from library...like the real library with books...this was around 1989-1990).
@@NightwishArena Books! I remember them, very tactile, engaging...
I cracked up at the "no Tarzans in Nightwish"😂😂
As a Finn I came to this video to see how you explaine the pronunciation 😅 (I know how to say them but I don't know how to explain it to other people)
Since I get often asked how to pronounce Finnish names... mainly the names of Nightwish members....especially Tarja's name. There are 2 different letters that can be hard for english speakers to pronounce, R and J.
That reminds me of the time when Tarja joked that she'll make fan shirst where it says how to pronounce her name.😅
She said that she can always tell where people are from by how they pronounce her name.
Also, I don’t know if you have noticed, but Floor is quite good at pronouncing Finnish names. She understands that there is no cutting corners when you pronounce Finnish😁
😂😂😂
You would laugh really Hard, when i tried to repronounce some of This:) thx for the Vid Lady, Stay healthy!
My head always reverts to my native Afrikaans pronunciation of foreign names and words. Which is, like you explained; every letter is pronounced exactly as it is read. Very happy to know that I've always pronounced their names correctly 💯😅
Great video, as an Estonian with Finnish name and Swedish ancestry, it was fun to do this pronunciation exercise !!!!
Kiitos pohjoisnaapuri 🤘😎🤘
Thank you. I appreciate that you took the time to place all of this inforation in one spot. I freely admit to being forgetful, and it will be nice to have this video to refer to.
This was one of the best times I've ever had in class! 😂
Seriously, your explanation at the beginning of how the Finnish language works was extremely invaluable. I took one year of Spanish in school, many, many years ago. I didn't retain much, but it seems like Finnish and Spanish are much alike, in that they have simple rules, with vowels always pronounced the same, and both even use rolling Rs. I don't know why English has to be so complicated. It must be tough learning it as a second language.
Fun fact: When Irene Jansen (Floor's sister) made her promo video for the latest Star One album, she introduced herself, pronouncing her last name with the English J and not a Y! She didn't seem to do it as a joke, so maybe she goes all in when speaking English? I've only ever heard Floor pronounce it with the Y sound.
Jansen in Finish is sounding quite the same as in Dutch, maybe better 🙂
Kiitos paljon!
That's not bad at all! In "phonetic Dutch" the VG's name went like "florrr ie-anzènn". Sounds great and we know whom it concerns, which is all that matters in the end. There's a video with Simone Simons doing all of the foreign pronunciations of her name. Clearly shows that she likes all of them and doesn't care about the "correct" pronunciation in Dutch. Which makes sense, I guess. In the land of Van Gogh we can't afford to be too picky ;)
For a Dutchie tho, it sounds like in Finnish the V doesn't really count and is pronounced as we would a very soft "w". In the NW part of NL the V in Vuorinen would sound almost like an F and elsewhere it's like in "very".
The fun really starts when ppl try to respectfully pronounce names/places from all over the world in their respective native tongues. Try: "Emppu Vuorinen (FI) and Floor Jansen (NL) went to Paris (FR) where they had latte macchiato (IT) and Apfelstrudel (DE). Could get even funnier with increasing variety.
That's why - in an international English dominant setting - I prefer e.g. people from the US to just stick with Americanized names and don't make a fuss about it. Cheers from Amsterdam! 🤘
This is a linguistic comment... I guess I'll make a stop here.
It would require a massive wall of text to explain the difference between Dutch and Finnish phonetics, and nobody wants that, right? (RIGHT?!) Well, not here anyway. 🤓
It seems that the concept of voiced vs. voiceless consonants is somewhat different in Germanic languages compared to most others. One thing is certain though: you have to RRRRRoll yeRRRRRR aRRRRRse! Something you don't seem to do much in Dutch.
As someone who can pronounce words correctly in most European languages, I normally.. don't. It feels awkward and embarrassing because people often think that you're a smartass and just showing off. The kind of people I usually deal with anyway.. So I normally use the proper English pronunciation: the Brummie one.😎
Except Van Gogh of course. The incorrect pronunciation of Van Gogh really, really makes my ears bleed!
@@noneofyerbeeswax8194 I obvioulsy could google it, but because you are here, can you tell how Van Gogh is pronounced? I guess the 'Gogh' part is quite tricky for non-Dutch people... Dutch has so distinquish throat sounds, I don't know if they are counted as fricatives or what (I can't imagine i could produce those!), but if 'Gogh' inculdes those sounds, well, yeah, I understand why your ears do bleed when foreigners try to say that name. (My ears bleed every time when someone says 'sauna'. It's childish from me to not tolerate the English pronaunciation of the word, but it is so important word in Finnish culture, that the English version just feels distracting. It doesn't hurt my feelings though :D Just ears.)
@@elinajarvinen4311 OK, here we go:
The 'v' here is pronounced as an 'f'.
The 'a' is nearly identical to the Swedish long 'a', it's rather dark, back-in-the-mouth. It's not held any longer than the short 'a' though.
The 'n' is just an 'n', but it's not emphasized (it's often dropped at the end of Dutch words).
Both 'g' are indeed guttural sounds, pronounced more or less like the German 'ch'. There are many variations. In the southern dialects of Dutch, this sound is soft, almost like a 'h'. So you can use the Finnish 'h', and it's gonna sound closer to Floor Jansen's Brabants accent. :)
The 'h' at the end is silent, of course.
The 'o' is short. You won't be far off if you pronounce it like the Finnish short 'o'.
And yes, "sawna" instead of "sauna" sounds disgusting.😝
@@noneofyerbeeswax8194 "One thing is certain though: you have to RRRRRoll yeRRRRRR aRRRRRse! Something you don't seem to do much in Dutch."
For sure! Problem is tho, that in Holla.. pardon, ze Netherlands we have five different "R"sezes. Two of them are rolled. One exactly like the Finnish one, and the other more in the back w/o getting into ze French one, which we also have. All depends on region.
So there's front-to-back 1) Finnish tongue rolled 2) Leidse r = quite "English" 3) Gooise r = sorta "American" 4) Voiced uvular trill (rolled in the back) style 5) Voiced uvular fricative, the "French" type.
Some regions have one style: front rolled all the time. Some have a combination of rolled (anlaut) and flowing (auslaut). Others flowing r all time. Again others do fricative (an) and flowing (aus). And lastly there's Dutchies who do fricative all the time.
This is a rough sketch oc. Trve Dutch 'R'thusiasts r able to distinguish 10+ different types combined by many in triple r use instead of just two. We should ask Floor about where she'd fit in this R-rating.
My guess is that (since she moved quite a bit when young) she can do them all & within once sentence even. Goes some ways to explain her crazy good enunciation of whatever lyrics are thrown her way by Twomas ;)
De Jansen pronunciation is reasonably ok. De name Floor however has a long O vowel, as signified by the double O. The exact pronunciation of the R matters less (that is more a dialectal choice in the NL), but never overdo it, keep it light, rolled or trilled.
Somehow l know how to pronounce Finnish names. 😜👍
But we can always practise to become more fluent 😄
@@elinajarvinen4311 l've always been extremely fluent in Finnish (itsekehuako? - hyi, hyi), but maybe not so much in other languages. ⛄👍
@@pekkakarppinen1608 (Kyllä pienelle itsekehulle on aina paikkansa! Paitsi ehkä Satakunnassa. ) Me too, so fluent that everyone asked when I started to study Finnish in the university: “But why! You are so fluent in Finnish!” The comment every Finn must get used to when they study Finnish 😆 I guess it is the same joke in every country with people who are studying their own language? Or is it? Mene ja tiedä.
@@elinajarvinen4311 Joo. Vastoin stereotypioita mä sekä puhun että pussaan. Pääsääntöisesti toki puhun. 😵👍
😂@@elinajarvinen4311
Mietin tässä, että olisiko ulkomaaneläviä auttanut pitkissä nimissä selkeä tavuttaminen painottamalla tavun alkua, esim: Ho-Lo-Pai-Nen tai Ne-Va-Lai-Nen. Meeppä tiijjä. (Haha, Troy Donoskley) 😅👍
Ajattelin ensin tehdä niin, mutta totesin, että en tee yhtään vaikeammaksi katsojalle tai itselle, kun jos tulisikin vahingossa painotettua jotain tavua korosten/väärin tms., en tahtoisi vastuulleni SEN vuoksi väärin lausuttuja nimiä. 😅
@@Harvinaisenkauniselama Fair enough. Olen perinyt vanhemmiltani Elokuva Aitan matrikkeleja Hollywood tähdistä 40-50 -luvuilta, joissa on mukana englannin kielen lausuntaohjeet suomeksi, esim. Lana Turner = Laana Töönö. Se on hauska.
Ja sitten nämä meidän automiesten suosikit. Minulla oli aikoinaan ihan hyvä pikkuauto Opel Corsa- siis suomalaisittain joko Opel Korsa tai Opel Sorsa. No, tiedän että Floorilla oli aikoinaan Honda Civic, siis meille Honda Sivik tai Honda Kivik. Että semmoista.
😊❤
Do the "ai" in Holopainen is almost like an English long I (eye) but you can actually hear the two separate letters.
Kai is actually Kaitsu so that U is pronounced the the one in Emppu?
Edit: andvas I understandbit, the most important town in Finland is pronounced "Kittay" not "Kitty"?
Correct! Just like ”eye” in Holopainen. And yes, with Kaitsu, a sharp S and then U like in Emppu.
AND I FORGOT KITEE! Its… Oh my… I need to do a Kitee video. 😅 Help. 😅
KI-TEE.
KI- is like ”key”, but short one: there is only one I, so end it short.
And then -TEE is like in TEEMU Selänne (first example that came to mind, sorry) or two Emppu kind of Es in there. So, it does not sound like English ”Tea”, but like sttetching Teeeeeelevision or EEEEEEMPPU for double effect.
I hope this helps? ((I cannot believe I remembered Tampere, but forgot The Important One!)
The 'ai' is similar to the ay/a diphthong in Brummie or Australian accent ("G'day mate" :)
The Finnish 'u' is always pronounced like in northern English dialects. Most importantly: the length and quality of a vowel or a consonant are indicated in writing. A double one is always long, and a single one short. There is no vowel reduction in Finnish. The quality and length of a vowel does not depend on its position in the word, nor on whether it's stressed or not. Stress is always on the first syllable.
There are also diphthongs and even triphthongs, but I'm not getting into this here.
Overall, Finnish is a very phonetically consistent language. Very easy to read.
Very hard to understand.😂
Yes, ‘ai’ in HolopAInen is like ‘eye’ in English. And ‘u’ in Kaitsu is similar with the ‘u’ in Emppu. Something like the last sound of ‘too’. (All the Finnish ‘u’s are like that. Only difference can be in length, and that you can see from writing. One ‘u’ in Emppu and Kaitsu, so it is a short. Two ‘u’s in word ‘kuu’ (means ‘moon’), so you say it as long.)
Kitee certainly is not pronounced like ‘kitty’, you are right! I’m not sure how ‘kittay’ would exactly sound, but I’m sure it’s more close.
The beginning of Kitee (KIT) is like the beginning of ‘kitty’. But you can’t actually think that word like KIT-EE. It’s KI-TEE. The double-e at the end of Kitee is like ‘e’ in ‘end’.
@@noneofyerbeeswax8194 I guess it was the repeated statement that every letter counts followed by what sounded like a diphthong that caught my attention to ask which it is.
The Nightwish names are easy. Your channel however...😂
I'll take that as a compliment. :D
@@Harvinaisenkauniselama It is!👍😂
Pronounciation is a bit like Dutch