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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| paparaciii Diglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6333 days ago 204 posts - 223 votes  Speaks: Latvian*, Russian Studies: English | Message 1 of 25 22 April 2009 at 2:50pm | IP Logged |
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Are they mutually intelligible?
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| Masked Avenger Triglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 6131 days ago 145 posts - 151 votes Speaks: English, French*, Danish Studies: Finnish, Latin | Message 2 of 25 22 April 2009 at 3:59pm | IP Logged |
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No.
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| paparaciii Diglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6333 days ago 204 posts - 223 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian Studies: English | Message 3 of 25 22 April 2009 at 4:07pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7153 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 25 22 April 2009 at 4:42pm | IP Logged |
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Acutally, I'd qualify that "no". They are somewhat mutually intelligible but Estonians usually understand Finnish better than Finns understand Estonian. Even with my basic knowledge of Estonian, I can decipher some signs and understand basic Finnish that's spoken slowly and clearly or written with fairly basic vocabulary.
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| paparaciii Diglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6333 days ago 204 posts - 223 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian Studies: English | Message 5 of 25 22 April 2009 at 5:30pm | IP Logged |
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Hmmm... you can understand basic Finnish with your basic Estonian... Are they really THAT intelligible?? :D
But seriously, I made this thread because one guy yesterday told me that those languages are fairly intelligible. Somehow I don't believe his story. Btw, Estonians and Finns - where the hell are you? I need your opinions on this subject. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7153 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 25 22 April 2009 at 5:47pm | IP Logged |
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After spending some time in Estonia and then teaching myself some Estonian, I do believe that guy whom you're referring to. The degree and direction of intelligibility can at times be exaggerated, however to say that they are not mutually intelligible (at all) seems at odds with what I've experienced.
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6891 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 25 22 April 2009 at 8:33pm | IP Logged |
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I grew up near Helsinki, where we could pick up a radio station from the Estonian capital Tallinn at barely 100 km distance across the water. Except it didn't have any interesting programs and I think hardly anyone ever listened to it. We could pick up a TV channel too, but they used a different standard so it was just a rather grainy picture with no sound.
From the few occasions when we did listen in on the radio I have the impression that we could pick up a few scattered words and a snippet of a sentence here and there, enough to mostly identify what subject was being discussed, but not a lot of detail on what was actually said. It is hard to put a percentage on it but it might be somewhere between ten and twenty per cent. I gather many Estonians grew up watching Finnish television, with American TV-series and other "interesting" (hmmm) programs that they didn't have access to otherwise during the Soviet days. I am guessing this might partly account for why Finnish is easier for them to understand than the other way around. In my opinion the two languages are probably a little closer, and more mutually intelligible, than Swedish and German, but not quite as close as Spanish and Italian, assuming we compare among native speakers who have not studied or had any special exposure to the other language at all. During a visit to Tallinn a few years ago I got by with Finnish with no problem at all for basics like ordering in the restaurant and doing some simple shopping, but obviously they were used to Finnish-speaking tourists and possibly adapted their speech to some extent too. Edited by Hencke on 22 April 2009 at 8:46pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 25 22 April 2009 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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I'm surprised that those two languages aren't seen as mutually intelligible. I have travelled from Tallinn to Helsinki and back with the ferry, and I remember that all signs on the ship were bilingual. And as far as I could see the two languages looked very close to each other, - though with slightly more letters in Finnish than in Estonian. Edited by Iversen on 22 April 2009 at 11:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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