My native language is Romanian, a latin language similar to French, Italian, Spanish, etc. But for some reason, when people are talking about the Latin languages, they always forget about my language.
Anyway, are there other people here who’s native language is not English [poll type=multiple min=1 max=1 public=true]
English
Spanish
French
Italian
Other
[/poll]
Those who have voted “Other” please specify exactly what language.
I’m well aware, we’re from the finno-ugric language group. Estonians are our neighbors and we can understand each other on a low level. Hungarians not at all.
Finnish is also one of the hardest languages in the world.
It sure is. But for some reason, Hungarian is regarded as harder. Hungarians are our neighbors, and they are also the largest minority in our country (6.1%) . Also there is a little Hungarian influence in the Romanian Vocabulary. How similar are Estonian and Finnish by vocabulary?
Yeah, but this is specifically about what someone’s first language is, not if they can speak more than one. Like English is mine, doesn’t mean I can’t speak more than one : p
Fairly. There are a fair amount identical words or slight variations. Often similar words mean completely different things though.
For instance:
Finnish: hallitus = government
Estonian: hallitus = mold
Finnish: ase = weapon
Estonian: ase = location (Finnish word ‘asema’ roughly means location/position)
Same meanings:
Finnish: maakunta = province
Estonian: maakond = province
Still, the languages aren’t similar enough to hold a fluid conversation. Switching to english is generally easier for both of us. We can catch on similar words to figure each other out, but straight up understanding is a long shot.
A lot of misunderstandings can also happen. Say, an Estonian says “Meil on suvel pulmad”, which means “We have the wedding in summer”, but a Finn can misunderstand that as “We have trouble in summer”.