As the date for Steemfest in Poland is getting closer and closer, I decided to take a look into the Polish language, starting with the basic, alphabet, cause it's nice to pronounce things correctly.

After watching the video, I must say that I'm quite amused of how many ways Polish (and Slavic languages) have figured a way to say [s]. Or those sssssnake voices (it makes me think that the best snake whisperers would be Slavs), you know what I mean. If not, watch the video.

Even though they have a gazcillion ways of zcaying thingsz (sorry), I like that the letters are at least consistent (am I right?) with pronunciation, like in Finnish actually, most of the time.

Oh, oh, I found a real term for "snake voices": sibilant.

^{Now I can speak using real terms, so civilized.}

So, Polish seems to have... many sibilants:

c, ć, s, ś, z, ź, ż

^{Only zetas alone you have three different kinds, damn.}

Oh, then there's also these nasal vowels:

ą, ę

^{Just look the video how their pronounced.}

Right, then there's the l with a cross

Ł, ł

which is just like /w/ in English.

Anyhow, to get back to the topic, the reason why I found the amount of sibilants in Polish amusing and slightly overwhelming personally, is because in Finnish, instead of having 7 sibilants, we have one... Yes, ONE snake voice to cover all purposes, and it's pronounced the same every time. Not that stupid inconsistency like in English.

Here it goes, it's

s

^{It's essentially the same as the s (out of the seven different ones).}

So, it might take couple of trials to get used to the idea that my s is suddenly 7 different kinds of s.

And to make it more confusing, you combine these together!?

cz, sz, śc, ćź, żc(?), śz(?)

In Finnish we have it way more simple:

ss

^{Basically you just take the one s and prolong it when you see there's two of them.}

In Polish there's a word

cześć!

which means "hi!"

But as a Finn doesn't recognize half of those letters, he/she would just say

tsess

and start wondering why does it sound so much like "chess" in english.

If he/she was particularly unmotivated to learn this new language, he would just make it

ses

We obviously like to make things simple when it comes to "snake voices", however, in Finnish we make things way more complicated with vowels and combining them:

hääyöaate = night wedding idea

^{Six vowels in a row – nice.}

While that isn't exactly a real world, it's technically correct to say it.

Right, you may want to know how to say hääyöaate so you can impress your friends:

Ä is like a in as, and when it's two ä's in a row, you just say it like ass without the two esses in the end. Easy, right? Just keep the ass rule in mind.

Y is similar as in the word two or too in English.

Ö... well... like this.

A is like u in the words fuck and undone. Wait... it's also the o in the latter word... Yeah, inconsistent language like I already told you.

E is like e in held. Weird, that word is actually consistent with Finnish pronunciation.

Now that you know 5 out of 8 Finnish vowels already, I'll teach you the remaining ones and then you're ready to read Finnish.

I is like e in east.

O as o in only or often.

U as in school.

Great now you can read Finnish!

Minä söin eilen jäätelöä hyvän työpäivän jälkeen vaivattuani öylättiä öisiä häitä varten

= Yesterday I ate ice cream after having knead wafer for the night wedding.

^{I know, the sentence makes little sense, I just wanted to return the favor of the zcczsccs.}

So, with all those vowels, a drunk Finnish man is easy to spot.

OHHOÄÄÄEAJAIAIAAIHJAÄAÄAEAEAIJHAIHEOEHOOAEAE (bemoans in Finnish) PERKELE!!! (swears in Finnish)

Now you might be questioning that why am I bringing this up. Well, two reasons:

Number 1 is that I hope I won't get so drunk that my language flips back to my mother tongue and I start to sound like in the above video.

Number 2, I hope there won't be as much snow in Krakow as in the video. Actually snow is worst coupled with alcohol because passing out in cold might be fatal. So, now I'm just hoping @guyfawkes4-20 won't drown me with Palinka. I'm afraid even a single shot of that stuff will get me tipsy.