FINNISH LANGUAGE

Finnish words do not have gender. Both males and females are referred to with the same third person singular pronoun hän ('he/she'). Words do not have separate definite and indefinite forms, and Finnish does not use articles.

There is a clear relationship between the way a word is written and the way it is pronounced, as a certain sound corresponds to the same letter irrespective of context. All Finnish words have their main stress on the first syllable.

Some features of the Finnish language are similar to Bahasa:

• absence of gender (the same pronoun hän denotes both he and she)
• absence of articles (a and the in English) => similar in Bahasa

Some other features of the Finnish language that might have similarity:

• long words due to the structure of the language

There are numerous loan words in Finnish, which demonstrates the existence of ancient contacts between the people speaking Finnish language and people speaking Indo-European languages. Most loans in present-day Finnish have come from the Germanic and Scandinavian languages, especially from Swedish.

Finnish is one of the Finno-Ugrian languages (also includes Hungarian, Estonian, Sámi (spoken by the indigenous people of northern Finland) and several lesser known languages spoken in Russia).

FINNISH WEATHER AND SEASONS

See here

Winter temperatures:

Winter is the longest season in Finland. According to climatic definition, when the average daily temperature remains below zero, it is winter. Winter weather in the southwestern archipelago, when the sea is ice-free, lasts about three months (December-February) and in northern Lapland more than six months, from mid-October to the end of April. In the central part of the country winter weather usually prevails from November to the beginning of April, and in the interior of southern Finland from December to the end of March.

Fun about geography:

Total area: 338,000 square kilometres, of which 10% is water and 69% forest; 187,888 lakes, 5,100 rapids and Europe's largest archipelago with 179,584 islands => in Indonesia 17,000 islands
Distances: 1,160 km north to south, 540 km west to east

The climate of Finland is marked by cold winters and fairly warm summers. In the far north of the country the sun does not set for about 73 days, producing the white nights of summer. In winter the sun remains below the horizon for 51 days in the far north.

In summer the temperature quite often rises to +20 Celsius or more and occasionally goes close to +30 in southern and eastern parts of the country. In winter, temperatures of -20 Celsius are not uncommon in many areas. Finnish Lapland invariably has the lowest winter temperatures. The mean temperature in Helsinki in July is +17 Celsius and in February -5.7 Celsius.