Northea

Sure, Hebrew and Arabic come to mind. The reason was probably that I was too young, trying to bite off more that I could chew with such different languages both with their own alphabets. I still think Hebrew is a beautiful language in its own way and I see no reason why I couldn’t and shouldn’t return to it at some point.

I think (based on stuff I've read and heard) that intelligence and languages go hand in hand: higher intelligence will help with learning new languages and mastering old ones, but learning languages in itself can (will?) raise your intelligence. You don’t have to be intelligent to learn a language, but the process can expand your brain and make you more intelligent.

There's this Finnish term for a part of nuclear reactor: atomiydinenergiareaktorigeneraattorilauhduttajaturbiiniratasvaihde (67 letters). There are many longer ones, but they're usually very synthetic (like  "kumarreksituteskenteleentuvaisehkollaismaisekkuudellisenneskenteluttelemattomammuuksissansakaankopahan" which is such a monster that even as a native speaker I'm not gonna try and make sense of it, it was clearly thought up just to make the longest word possible). The Guinness Book of Records used to have (or still has, I don't know) lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas (61 characters) as the longest Finnish word that was actually in use (it means a student mechanic of jet engines, to put it very shortly).

We also have fun words like sahatavarasatama (lumber harbor) and the famous dialogue:

"Kokko, kokoo kokko." (slightly ungrammatical, because it should be kokoa, not kokoo, as that is spoken language and not written)

"Koko kokkoko?"

"Koko kokko."

("Kokko (name), put together the bonfire."

"(You mean) the whole bonfire?"

"The whole bonfire."

Quote

 

Germans just love to combine words together into forming one long snake of a word.

Yeah, we love to do that too here in Finland, as is evident above 

There's no equivalent of a/the in Finnish. There's no difference between the two cases either, at least that I can think of right now.

Cat = kissa

A cat = kissa

The cat = kissa

If you want to be more specific, you can add helping words like "that" (tuo kissa) (which also means "bring cat" but let's not get into that now).

What a truly great idea, especially for a forum like this. I'll add all the Finnish ones I can come up with (but only the ones I'm absolutely sure of) 

Double post, please remove.

I've always found Sanksrit very beautiful, so I voted for it.

There was no Georgian language on the list, but that's another one of my favorites, aesthetics-wise. I'm surprised it hasn't even been mentioned yet.

On 9/11/2016 at 7:23 PM, KimmyMarkks said:

Since Latin is not spoken anymore what do you think are the benefits of learning the language?  I've heard that a foundation in Latin helps to learn other Romance Languages?  What do you think?

It absolutely does. I haven't been actively trying to learn languages that derive straight from Latin (Spanish, Italian, French at least), but I understand a lot of words just because I have some vocabulary in Latin. I've been interested in learning Latin since I was like 13, but it wasn't taught at my school (when we really got to choose languages at upper secondary school), so I've tried a bit on my own, but I don't have much of a grasp on the grammar. Maybe I should start again with this forum helping me 

On 2/3/2014 at 7:49 PM, linguaholic said:

[table][tr][td]Occupations[/td][td]English[/td][td]Finnish[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]1[/td][td]Pianist[/td][td]pianisti[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]2[/td][td]Politician[/td][td]politiikko[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]3[/td][td]Mechanic[/td][td]mekaanikko[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]4[/td][td]Botanist[/td][td]botaanikko[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]5[/td][td]Academic[/td][td]akateemikko[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]6[/td][td]Musician[/td][td]muusikko[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]7[/td][td]Mathematician[/td][td]matemaatikko[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]7[/td][td]Linguist[/td][td]lingvistikko[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]7[/td][td]Architect[/td][td]arkkitehti[/td][/tr]

[/table]

 

I'm gonna have to correct you a little bit here. Botanist is botanisti and linguist is lingvisti. 

Let me try and think of some basic ones to add...

Police   -  poliisi

Doctor (MD) - lääkäri

Nurse   -  sairaanhoitaja

Firefighter  -  palomies*

Scientist   -   tiedemies*

Plumber  -  putkimies*

* These all end in -mies, which means man, so we haven't quite achieved equality there yet 

Thanks for the tip, I installed it on my phone just now.

Okay, it's a bit confusing because it's only in German. It's also only quizzes with no explanations of anything, so if you don't know already about the category of the questions, just guess your way through them and in the end you'll see the right answers. 

I think it might make a decent app if it was translated and some lessons were added here and there. Now it's just guessing.

Hey, just bumping this thread to see if there's anyone here currently that's interested in learning Finnish. I just joined the forums, I'm a native Finn and I'd love to help out anyone who has any questions on the language or the culture or anything about Finland really 

1st ensimmäinen

2nd toinen

3rd kolmas

4th neljäs

5th viides

6th kuudes

7th seitsemäs

8th kahdeksas

9th yhdeksäs

10th kymmenes

11th yhdestoista

12th kahdestoista

13th kolmastoista

14th neljästoista

15th viidestoista

16th kuudestoista

17th seitsemästoista

18th kahdeksastoista

19th yhdeksästoista

20th kahdeskymmenes

21st kahdeskymmenesensimmäinen

22nd kahdeskymmenestoinen

23rd kahdeskymmeneskolmas

and so forth to

99th yhdeksäskymmenesyhdeksäs

100th sadas

1000th tuhannes

Hi all linguaholics 

I'm a native Finn with fluent English, and currently I'm trying to improve my Swedish (with the help of my spouse and what I learned in school, meaning I'm not actively studying it, but I try to slip some into everyday conversations just to see if I can say something correctly ). I'm also fascinated by the German language and mean to start self-studying it (I know a bit of German already because I'm a big Rammstein fan ). I'll also be more than happy to help anyone interested in the Finnish language, which is a pretty crazy one.

Byt yeah, just wanted to say hello and I will see you around the forums 

(Too many smileys? )