How to say @ and # in Finnish
In this article, we’ll look at the names of some of the most common symbols you will need online. Learn how to say @ and # in Finnish, as well as http:// in this article!
The At Sign @ in Finnish
The “at sign” is called ät-merkki in Finnish. It’s simple as that! However, the @ sign also has some nicknames: it’s been called kissanhäntä and miukumauku as well.
Normally, you will read the email address etunimi.sukunimi@gmail.com as “etunimi piste sukunimi ät gmail piste kom”. The email service gmail can be pronounced both the english way and a more Finnish way, where it becomes “gee mail” (Finnish pronunciation, you can check it in Google Translate).
Hashtags # in Finnish
The symbol # is called “risuaita” or “ristikkomerkki” in Finnish, and has been used in music for centuries. Together with a keyword, this symbol can be used to form a hashtag (e.g. #onnellinen).
So far, people haven’t fully decided yet what to call a hashtag in Finnish. One option is just to keep the word hashtag. However, following the English spelling leads us to a problem with the pronunciation and inflection. Will it become “hashtageja” or “hashtagejä”?
Another possible way to adopt hashtag into Finnish would be to copy the word but change the spelling: häshtäg. This would at least make the inflection easier: e.g. häshtägillä, häshägistä.
More Finnish–sounding alternatives are avainsana (“keyword”) and aihetunniste (“topic id”). The name of the symbol, risuaita, is also up for election for the combination of the symbol and the keyword.
The currently most established alternative is simply hashtag, as you can find it in kielikello and in the wikipedia article, which is interestingly titled “aihetunniste” but uses the word “hashtag” many times in the actual article.
Https:// in Finnish
In Finnish, you will pronounce each of the letters at the beginning of a url separately. This of course requires you to know how to pronounce each letter. I don’t currently have a page about this on my website.
The letter combinations http becomes “hoo tee tee pee” in Finnish, and if we choose to also add the s, it’s “hoo tee tee pee äs”. The symbols used after this letter combination are “kaksoispiste” and “vinoviiva”.
This vinoviiva / is a bit of a problem, because in urls it’s usually said as “kautta”, which is short for kauttaviiva. Officially vinoviiva is the forward slash /, while kauttaviiva is the backslash \. However, more often than not, when saying urls, we will use “kautta” in urls: “hoo tee tee pee kaksoispiste kautta kautta“.
Next, www will also be pronounced differently than the letter generally gets pronounced. In other contexts, w is said as kaksois-vee. In urls, you will use the much easier “vee vee vee“.
Put all of that together and we get “hoo-tee-tee-pee-äs kaksoispiste kautta-kautta vee-vee-vee piste yle piste fi” for the web address https://www.yle.fi.
That’s it for this article! Do you now have a firm grasp on how to say @ and # in Finnish? You can learn more computer vocabulary as well as other forms of punctuation on our website!
