The following presentation covers all Finnish letters as well as some “foreign” letters that may appear in Finnish texts in foreign names and in loanwords adopted “as such”.
Finnish a is similar to the “a” sound in the English word “father” in British English (Received Pronunciation), except that the Finnish a may be short or long. The “a” in “father” is between short and long in Finnish terms, usually closer to long. In US English (General American), the vowel in “top” is close to Finnish a. Finnish a is similar to the “a” in German, Italian, Spanish, and many other languages.
Care must be taken to keep a as separate from ä. These sounds are recognized as distinct by speakers of Finnish, and their difference often makes a difference in the meaning of a word, i.e. the sounds are distinct phonemes.
Finnish b is nominally similar to English “b”, but it appears only in relatively new loanwords and is mostly pronounced as “p” or almost as “p”, only partly voiced. A clearly voiced b appears typically only in educated public speech. See section Unvoiced and voiced stops.
Letter c appears only in foreign words and in a few loanwords. It is in principle pronounced according to the rules of the original language. In practice, it is usually pronounced as s before e, i, or y and as k otherwise.
In standard Finnish pronunciation, d is similar to English “d”. However, its role in the language is somewhat artificial, as described in The story of d.
When d appears in relatively new loanwords, it is often pronounced as Finnish t or almost as t by some people, although such pronunciation is often regarded as vulgar.
On the other hand, d appears as a counterpart of t in consonant gradation, in normal Finnish words, as in katu : kadut. In such contexts, it is very rare in dialects; Western dialects typically have r instead of it (e.g. karut), or sometimes l (kalut), whereas Eastern dialects may have lack of any sound there (kaut), or v (kavut), or something else. Sometimes t is exempted from gradation, e.g. the genitive of äiti (mother) can be äitin instead of the standard äidin.
When speaking standard Finnish, simply pronounce d as in English, but stay tuned to hearing many other pronunciations.
Finnish e is similar to English “e” in “get”, but more closed. The difficulty is that in Finnish, the vowel can be long, too, written as ee, and this has no counterpart in standard forms of English. Finnish does not make a distinction between open and closed e. The Finnish e tends to be rather closed, to keep it far enough from ä, and a foreign-language open [e] often sounds like [ä] to a Finn. The Finnish e resembles the first component of the diphtong in the word “ace” in British and US English.
Finnish f is similar to English “f”, but it appears only in relatively new loanwords. It is pronounced as v or (between vowels) as hv by many people. Such pronunciation is substandard, except in some words like asfaltti (asphalt), which is normally pronounced (and sometimes written) as asvaltti. However, the common pronunciation of f is weaker than in English (except when doubled, ff) and may come close to Finnish v.
The letter g has two roles in Finnish. It appears in relatively new loanwords, and in them, it is typically pronounced as k, except in educated public speech, where it may be pronounced more or less like “g” in English “get”. See section Unvoiced and voiced stops. On the other hand, it appears in the combination ng, which is usually the consonant gradation counterpart of the combination nk, e.g. Helsinki : Helsingissä, and it is pronounced as a double “eng sound”. In loanwords, ng may appear otherwise, too, and the gn combination may occur, too; see The eng phoneme.
The letter h denotes a single phoneme in Finnish, but its pronunciation varies greatly by phonetic context. There are two different positions in a syllable where h may appear:
The pronunciation of h is greatly affected by the vowel of the syllable that the h belongs to or, if the syllable has a diphthong, the vowel closest to h. The main features of the variation are:
Finns usually do not realize how much the pronunciation of h varies, since the same letter is used. They have unconsciously learned to pronounce it differently according to phonetic context.
The letter h is always pronounced, except that the second h of hiha (sleeve) is usually mute, especially in inflected words (e.g. hihan is pronounced [hian]).
The [h] sound does not usually appear as a double consonant, except in some interjections and descriptive words like huhhei and hihhuli and, in some pronunciations, due to boundary gemination; e.g. ole hiljaa (be silent) is mostly pronounced as written, but may also be pronounced oleh hiljaa.
At the end of a word, [h] appears only in interjections such as huh, in words participating boundary gemination, and in foreign words. Finns tends to pronounce a word-final letter h in foreign names where it is used (in the foreign language) only to indicate the quality or length of the preceding vowel or just as part of the spelling, e.g. Savannah.
The quality of Finnish i similar to English “ea” in “seat”, i.e. more closed than “i” in “sit”, but as such Finnish i is short. The difference between Finnish i and ii is primarily in the length, whereas the English sounds differ primarily in quality. As a foreigner speaking Finnish, just make sure you make the length distinction clearly—it does not disturb much if the vowels are also qualitatively more different than in native Finnish speech.
Finnish j is pronounced like “y” in English “yes”. Between i and a vowel, j is pronounced weakly or not at all, e.g. lukija (reader) is typically pronounced lukia (three syllables: lu, ki, a). After a diphthong ending with i, as in leijona (lion), the pronunciation varies from inaudible (leiona) to a double j (leijjona), as described in section Transitory sounds.
The letter k stands for the “k” sound, which is always written with k in Finnish; c and q appear only in foreign words. The Finnish k is not aspirated at all, so it sounds softer than English “k”. See section Unvoiced and voiced stops.
Finnish l is similar to English “l”, though with less variation by phonetic context. Compared with the various variants of English “l”, the Finnish l is more or less average, neutral.
Finnish m is similar to English “m”.
Pronunciation of n is similar to English “n”, including the special phonetic value in the nk combination. For the ng combination, see notes on g. Before p, the letter n is pronounced as m (e.g. olenpa is read as olempa), usually even across word boundaries (pojan pallo is read as pojam pallo). Other assimilations occur, too.
Finnish o is similar to “o” in British English “hot”, but more closed. When long (oo), it resembles “aw” in English “hawk”. Finnish does not make a distinction between open and closed o.
Finnish p stands for the “p” sound, which is not aspirated at all in Finnish, so it sounds softer than English “p”. See section Unvoiced and voiced stops.
The letter q appears only in foreign words and is in principle pronounced according to the rules of the original language. In practice, Finns read it as k, and a u after q is usually read as v.
The letter r is always pronounced and stronger than any variant of “r” in standard American or British English. Pronounce it first like word-initial “r” in English. The important thing is that r is always pronounced, even at the end of word and before a consonant. Later you can try to imitate the native Finnish trilling r.
Finnish s is basically the unvoiced “s” as in English “sing”. However, since Finnish lacks a contrast between that sound and the voiced “s” (as in English “busy”) as well as between “s” and the “sh” sound of English, the Finnish s can vary a lot and is generally less sharp than English “s”. Different people and social groups can have varying special versions of s, since Finnish speech remains quite understandable despite such variation.
The letter š appears only in new loanwords and denotes in principle a sound similar to English “sh”. However, it is generally pronounced more or less the same as s, though an š sound may be produced to make a word sound more foreign. The letter is part of the official orthography, but it has never become really popular; even many newspapers use sh instead of š (e.g. sheikki instead of šeikki). Moreover, official rules for using š have varied, replacing š by s in many words; see section š versus s.
Sometimes š is also used to write the interjection šš, which asks for silence; a more common spelling is shh or shhh.
The combination sh may appear in purely Finnish words when the letters belong to different parts of a compound word, as in naishenkilö, or the h belongs to the hAn suffix, e.g. mieshän. In such contexts, the letters s and h are pronounced separately.
The letter t stands for the “t” sound, which is not aspirated at all in Finnish, so it sounds softer than English “t”. Moreover, it is dental, i.e. the tongue touches the upper teeth. This is one way of keeping t and d as different in Finnish.
Finnish u is similar in quality to “oo” in British pronunciation of “goose”, but may appear as short or long. It is thus more closed than English “u” in “put”. Finnish does not distinguish between different qualities of u; instead, the difference between Finnish u and uu is primarily in the length, whereas the English sounds mentioned differ primarily in quality.
Finnish v resembles English “v” but is weaker. Phonetically, Finnish v is an approximant: the lower lip just comes close to the upper teeth or slightly touches them, whereas English “v” is a fricative, with some sound of friction produced. Finns generally do not pronounce “v” correctly when speaking English, since they are unaware of this difference. However, using English “v” when speaking Finnish does not affect understandability, partly because Finnish lacks a “w” phoneme.
After a diphthong ending with u, as in vauva (baby), the pronunciation of v varies from inaudible (vaua) to a double v (vauvva), as described in section Transitory sounds.
The letter w appears mostly in foreign words only and is in principle pronounced according to the original language. In practice, Finns tend to pronounce it before a vowel like Finnish v even in words like watti.
In Finnish names where w is used as a holdover from old orthography, as in the surname Wirta, it is always read as Finnish v.
The letter x appears in foreign words only and is in principle pronounced as in the original language, but normally as ks. Earlier it was used in a few international words, e.g. xylofoni instead of now standard ksylofoni, and such usage can still be seen.
Finnish y has no counterpart in English; the vowel in some pronunciations of “new” may come close, and so may the vowel in “dude” (due to the effect of the d’s). It corresponds to German “ü” and French “u”. You can try to produce it by saying “u” (as in “put”) but moving your tongue towards the front part of the mouth. The y sound is the front-vowel counterpart of the back vowel u. It is important that the lips are rounded.
The letter z appears mostly in foreign words only and is in principle pronounced according to the original language. In practice, it is generally pronounced as ts, following German orthography. Thus, Tarzan is normally pronounced Tartsan in Finnish. However, in modern foreign names, like Zimbabwe, z may be pronounced as in English (voiced s) or as a normal s.
The letter ž is in principle part of Finnish orthography, denoting a sound like “s” in English “measure”. In practice, it only appears in the combination dž, e.g. maharadža, and the actual pronunciation of dž is typically dš or, most often, ds. The letter ž is also used in Finnish transliteration of Russian, e.g. Žukov (Zhukov).
The letter å appears in Finnish texts only in Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian names and their derivations, like ångström. It is pronounced like o and can be short or long according to the rules of the Scandinavian languages.
The letter ä is pronounced like “a” in “hat” in most versions of English. It is the front vowel counterpart of a and very common in Finnish (about 5% of occurrences of letters). It is essential to keep ä different from a.
Finnish ö has no direct counterpart in English, but it corresponds to German “ö” and French “eu”. To pronounce it, try saying “aw” (as in “hawk”) but keeping your tongue in the front part of the mouth. It is the front vowel counterpart of o and rather rare in Finnish (about 0.5% of occurrences of letters). Finns often interpret the neutral (schwa) vowel like the initial vowel of the English word “about” as ö and may (jocularly) write that word as öbaut in Finnish texts. However, the ö sound is very different from the neutral vowel; but these vowels might have samewhat similar “dark” feeling around them in people’s minds.
The dots in letters ä and ö, called diaeresis or dieresis in character code standards, are treated as an integral part of the letters, even though they are called diacritic marks in international terminology. In other words, ä and ö are treated as basic letters of the alphabet, not e.g. just as “a Umlaut” and “o Umlaut” as in German. Finnish keyboard have separate keys Ö and Ä (to the right of J K L).
However, the dots are recognized as visually separate parts of the letters, called ä:n pisteet (the dots of ä) and ö:n pisteet in Finnish.
In handwriting, and in fonts simulating it, the two dots in ä and ö are usually written as a wavy line (as in ã) or a short horizontal line (as in ā).
The letters æ and ø as used in Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese are recognized as corresponding to ä and ö, respectively, and conventionally called tanskalainen ä ja ö (Danish ä and ö).
Previously, it was common even in reference books in Finnish to write Danish and Norwegian names using ä and ö instead of æ and ø, e.g. writing Bodö instead of Bodø. However, this is nonstandard: the names should be written as in the source language, except for established Finnish replacements, like Tromssa for the Norwegian “Tromsø”.
The eng sound, called äng-äänne in Finnish, lacks a letter of its own in the Finnish writing system. It is pronounced as “n” in English “sink”. Its appearance in Finnish before k could be described just as a variant of the “n” phoneme, if Finnish did not have the ng combination, which is pronounced as a double eng sound. The difference between [n] and the eng sound, denoted in grammatical descriptions by [ŋ], makes a difference in meaning e.g. for rannan [rannan] – rangan [raŋŋan], the genitives of ranta and ranka.
In originally Finnish words, and in old loanwords, the eng sound appears only in the nk [nk] combination and its consonant gradation counterpart ng [ŋŋ], between vowels, e.g. Helsinki [helsiŋki] : Helsingissä [Helsiŋŋissä]. There is no “g” sound in the Finnish pronunciation of ng in such contexts.
In loanwords, ng may appear before a consonant or at the end of a word. It is then pronounced as a single eng sound, e.g. englanti [eŋlanti] (English language) and pingpong [piŋpoŋ]. The word-final pronunciation corresponds to English practice, but pronunciation before a consonant is different, due to lack of “g” sound in Finnish. When a word ending with ng is inflected, a double eng sound is pronounced, e.g. pingpongissa [piŋpoŋŋissa].
In a few loanwords, ng is pronounced as [ŋg] or [ng], because the n and the g are recognized as belonging to different parts of the word, e.g. pangermanismi, which is read as written, or kongressi, which is read [koŋressi] or [koŋgressi].
The pronunciation of the gn combination in new loanwords varies between [gn] and [ŋn]. The latter is normal in common words like magneetti [maŋneetti], but [g] is used in words like prognoosi. At the start of a word, gn is always read as written, e.g. gnuu.
On a computer with a microphone or on a tablet or a smartphone, you can test and tune your pronunciation of Finnish words by visiting www.google.fi or translate.google.fi on the Chrome browser. Click on the microphone icon, with the tooltip Puhehaku (Speech search), and see if Google recognizes your pronunciation of e.g. kala, kylä, köli, työ, and other Finnish words that you can find in this book.