English Facilitator
(Tampere, Pirkanmaa)
5 common mistakes Finns make when speaking English
- Mispronouncing the letter ‘b’, so for example the word ‘pub’ sounds like ‘pup’. This mispronunciation is confusing to native speakers, because a ‘pup’ is a baby animal. You can see an example of this mistake in the picture of Ale Pupi (should be ‘pubi’) in Tampere!
- Pronouncing the ‘l’ in ‘salmon’. The ‘l’ is silent! There are lots of silent letters in the English language and Finns have learned many of them correctly (yes English is a difficult language I know:-)). Why then salmon slips through the net (ha ha!) is a mystery.
- Using the phrase ‘What comes to….’ when introducing a new subject, for example ‘What comes to recruitment, bla bla….’. A native speaker would say ‘On the subject of…bla bla’, or ‘ About …bla bla’.
- Using the word ‘unclarity’. For example ‘there are many unclarities in the new sales process…’. The word ‘unclarity’ does not exist! Sorry guys, you just cannot take a word and put an ‘un’ in front to express the negative or opposite. English is not as logical as Finnish! We have to use a workaround, so we would say …’there are many unclear parts in the new sales process’
- Not saying the ‘the’, ‘a’ or ‘an’ before nouns, for example saying ‘let’s go to lake’. Yes, this mistake is well known. Yes we have these annoying definite and indefinite articles! These little words are essential if you want to be clear what you mean. Go to any lake, or one lake in particular?