Hi, so I’m taking duolingo finnish and I love the language! But for this word the duolingo recording just pronounces it radio, whereas all other words ending with ta actually sound like they end in ta, like televisiota. I keep reporting the error to duolingo, but I would just like to make sure here that it isn’t some weird exception. Thanks in advance!
by SelfOk2720
10 comments
Yes, it’s pronounced, just as you thought.
There are _no_ silent letters in Finnish
There are no silent letters in Finnish, everything is said as it is written.
For me ”radioa” feels more natural. Probably has to do with the vowel in the end. Maybe Duolingo is pronouncing it like that? Googled it and both ”radiota” and ”radioa” seem to be correct.
https://kielitoimistonohjepankki.fi/ohje/taivutustyyppeja-tarkeaa-ja-tarkeata-radiota/
The main rule is that if something is written, it should also be pronounced. This is not an exception. However, this is pretty formal language, in colloquial speech I’d say something like “onko sulla radiota tai telkkaria?”
In the formal speech that is taught by duolingo it should be pronounced. In standard spoken Finnish it would often sound like “…radioo tai televisioo” with long-ish o (the beginning of the sentence would also be reduced to “onksulla” in everyday speech, so if this is a recording of non-professional speaker or AI it can be affected by this
Everything is pronounced, but in practice we use different versions of a LOT of words when speaking, vs. when writing. Unless it’s like a formal speech. The more formal a situation is, the closer the speech gets to written language.
The non-formal versions of words we use in everyday speech depend a lot on where you come from. I am from Turku and would normally say “Onks sul radioo tai telkkarii?”
On the other hand if I was doing a phone survey I would speak that question exactly as written.
To complicate this a bit more, when I write very informally (for instance on Messenger and Whatsapp), I write everything the way I would speak.
Unless its a foreign word thats pronounced the same as its original language, there are no silent letters in finnish.
As a native speaker, the -ta ending just started sounding comical. To add, that could be interpreted as meaning “part of”, so correct response seems to be home up a cracked cathode tube and say “da”. I don’t see that there would be anything wrong with just “Onko sinulla radio tai televisio” even in formal language.
However, as others have said, if the -ta is written out, it’s most certainly spoken too. Also those are words which are seldom heard nowadys; “hätäradio” (emergency radio) and töllöä, telkkaria, videoita, taulutvtä, netflixiä etc. might be used in practice.
I reported this at least a year ago and they haven’t fixed it yet