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1. Finnish is gender neutral

Finnish does not have grammatical gender, like some European languages, so there鈥檚 no need to remember whether table is masculine or feminine, for example.

In addition to this, there鈥檚 no need to create a separate gender-neutral pronoun in Finnish 鈥� since it already exists. What鈥檚 more, it鈥檚 the only option: in Finnish the third person singular pronoun (usually he or she in English) is 丑盲苍 and can be used to refer to a person of any gender. None of the other pronouns are gender-specific either 鈥� at least in this respect, Finnish learners have it easy!

2. There is no future tense in Finnish

The future tense does not exist in Finnish; you just use the present tense. This is a lot more practical than it might sound: if there鈥檚 any chance of confusion, you simply add words like varmaan (鈥減robably鈥�) or kohta (鈥渟辞辞苍鈥�), huomenna (鈥渢omorrow鈥�) or kun leh尘盲t lent盲v盲t (鈥渨hen cows fly鈥� 鈥� Finnish goes for cows over pigs in this case) to specify that the action is (or is not) happening in the future. Or you can use a verb like aikoa (鈥渢o intend鈥�) if you want to be crystal clear.

3. East versus West

Finnish has several mutually intelligible dialects that are broadly divided into two groups: Western and Eastern. The dialects differ in vocabulary and intonation, but there are some differences in the grammar and morphology, too.

One thing that a Finnish learner will notice quickly is the fact that different dialects have different pronouns: 鈥淚鈥� can be 尘盲 (Helsinki), 尘盲盲 (Tampere), 尘苍盲盲 (Rauma), mie (Kuopio) or 尘颈盲 (Kotka) 鈥� and in standard Finnish, it鈥檚 尘颈苍盲.

4. Finnish is pronounced like it鈥檚 written

Finnish has very regular pronunciation; usually, there is almost 100% correspondence between letters and sounds. However, some sounds are difficult for Finnish learners to pronounce. When learning the Finnish language, these are a few things you need to know about letters and sounds:

• Finnish has eight vowels: a, o, u, e, i, 盲, 枚 and y.
• Vowels are pronounced as written, as are most consonants.
• Words are always stressed on the first syllable. However, the stress does not make the syllable long.
• Vowels and consonants can be short (written with one letter) or long (written with two letters). The length of a consonant or a vowel may be change the meaning of the word. For example, lakki (鈥渃ap鈥�) has a long k and laki (鈥渓aw鈥�) has a short one.
• Like other Finno-Ugric languages, Finnish has vowel harmony (you cannot have back and front vowels in the same word).

5. Finnish has 18 diphthongs

Finnish has a great many diphthongs or gliding vowels (two adjacent vowels in the same syllable). Some of these are fairly common in other languages, like ai in aika (鈥渢ime鈥�) or oi in poika (鈥渂oy鈥�), others may initially feel like a punishment for deciding to learn such a peculiar language, like 盲测 [忙丧] in t盲测si (鈥渇ull鈥�) or 测枚 [y酶摊] in s测枚d盲 (鈥渢o eat鈥�).

One example of a Finnish diphthong is in the name of the language itself: suomi (鈥淔innish鈥�). Another one is in the one word of Finnish you already definitely know: sauna. You just need to pronounce it with a Finnish accent: /’s蓱un蓱/.