The first day that we went to the Turku University of Applied Sciences, a teacher told us that the Finnish language doesn’t have sexes in the language. Everybody is called ‘hän’ what we would translate as ‘it’. Finnish is therefore a gender-neutral language. The woman said that we shouldn’t feel insulted if someone talks to us as being a man instead of a woman. Because Finnish doesn’t know any sexes, it is difficult for them to distinguish this in English.
Another word they don’t know in Finnish is ‘please’. When we would ask something to someone, we would say ‘please’ to make it a question instead of an order. They don’t use this in Finnish. The first days and weeks I really had to get used to this because it sounded very rude to me.
Also, when we want to thank someone for doing something, we say ‘you’re welcome’. They don’t say this in Finnish. They just say ‘kiitos’, which means ‘thank you’.
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