| Back vowels | Middle vowels | Front vowels |
|---|---|---|
| a | e | ä |
| o | i | ö |
| u | y |
This list helps you understand how to pronounce the vowels and words with diphthong:
Vowel Orthography
The harmony of vowels
Finnish has an unusual feature called vowel harmony, which means that the front vowels (ä, ö, y) and the back vowels (a, o, u) can never be found in the same word. (Compound words don't count, and the mid-vowels i, e are OK anywhere.) This extends even into loanwords and conjugations: most Finns pronounce Olympia as olumpia, and suffixes with "a" bend into "ä" when necessary (jaa →jaata, jää → jäätä).
|
Long vowels are indicated simply by doubling the vowel in question.
- a
- like a in father, but short and clipped
- aa
- like a in father
- e
- like e in get
- ee
- not found in English, but just stretch out the e sound
- i
- like ee in beet
- o
- like o in nor
- oo
- stretch out the o sound
- u
- like ou in would
- uu
- like oo in moon
- y
- like German ü, similar to ew in few but with lips rounded (transcribed uu )
- yy
- not found in English, but just stretch out the y sound
- ä
- like a in cat
- ää
- like a in bad
- ö
- like German ö, similar to e in her (transcribed eu )
- öö
- not found in English, but just stretch out the "ö" sound
When pronouncing a word that has a diphthong (a word with vowel sequence) you can cut the word in half, for example:
Hotelli (HO-tehl-lee) would be Hotel/li - Learning Resource:
