Welcome to Finland missä (where) 92% of people speak Finnish! In 5 seconds you're going to use it in a dialogue and all you need to do is to repeat the syllable "koh" as if you feel especially chicken-y today. Ready, steady, go:
— Kokko, kokoo kokoon koko kokko.
— Koko kokkoko?
— Koko kokko.
Congrats! You've just said: "Kokko (surname), gather together the whole bonfire." "The whole bonfire?" "The whole bonfire." Though it is not the most common conversation, it still feels good to be able to speak Suomea (Finnish). And after Portuguese "Pó pô pó? — Pó pô!" and German "Na? — Na!" this one doesn't seem that weird.
Let's use this new knowledge to embrace the melody of such a creative language with the help of the short video (1 minute) below (ignore its name). Don't chicken out (or do?), repeat after the guy:
The language sounds a bit like Estonian and for a reason: both Estonian and Finnish languages are members of the Uralic family of languages. Which means, grammarwise Suomea has nothing in common with Swedish I have just Langventured out from.
More than that, Finland is NOT A PART OF SCANDINAVIA! Did you think differently? Scandinavia includes only Sweden, Norway and Denmark!
Now that we can keep the conversation going with just any Finn on the planet, let's invest 2 minutes in acquiring couple more useful and expressive words with this Finnish lad:
There you have it! And I will throw in one more sentence for you that souns like something Jar Jar Bings would say: "Missä on vessa?" (Mees-sah on vehs-sah). Meaning "Where is the bathroom?" this one will always keep you happy and relieved.
Vilpoinen! (Veel-poy-nehn) Cool!
