Differences between English and Finnish

[paceus]

Differences between English and Finnish, a short article that I thought you might find interesting.

Finnish invariably places primary stress on the first syllable of a word, and the stress does not significantly affect the vowel quality. This is in stark contrast to English, which has fairly unpredictable stress patterns. It is not surprising,

Comments

[semyaza]

English intonation is typically falling as well but uptalk (interrogatory statements) has become very common, and very annoying, in American English. It's hard not to imitate it. The tricky part of intonation in questions is that it varies with the question. Mostly, I wouldn't use a rising intonation. But sometimes I might. :D

[paceus]

Haha, apparently rising intonation just doesn't happen when I'm talking. I often think with stress patterns but when I talk, nothing comes out but monotone.

[minnasw]

It's been years since this happened, but a pal of mine and I were talking in Finnish in front of a couple of Spanish speakers (whom we knew), and I think they were of the opinion that we sounded almost like angry. I think we were discussing something that may have been a bit serious, but we weren't angry. :D

[paceus]

I can imagine people thinking we're angry! "Deadpan" is another description I've often heard.

I think I hear the intonation in my head and get it right, but when I speak, there's just no trace of it. I'd probably also learn it by concentrating hard.

Consonants, I know I don't often get right, but I've never really thought about my vowels. What's wrong with them? (Generally speaking.) The examples in the article that I linked to didn't make much sense to me.

It's charming to speak with an accent that's not "pure." Imo. :)

[minnasw]

Well, for example, in AE [even the whole "AE" is a generalization, of course] vowels such as the a in hat, they're pronounced in a slightly different place (and the length can be different, too) than their Finnish "equivalents". In a way, it could sort of feel like they're pronounced less clearly, or more ambiguously. Somewhere-in-between. Because I was used to pronouncing the vowels in a certain place in my mouth, those places were the norm, and thus any vowels that wouldn't be pronounced there would be considered to be between two vowels, in a way. And, well, then there's the schwa used on many unstressed syllables. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa... )

[minnasw]

But even with the schwa, it's just as much about knowing (consciously/intuitively) when to use it, as it is about knowing how to produce the sound. :)

[xylohypha]

That's very interesting! We humans have devised so many different combinations of ways to make language work!

[paceus]

I know, I love comparisons like this. :)