2. Countries and nationalities

Names of some countries are very different in Finnish than in English.
For example:
Suomi         Finland
Venäjä         Russia
Ruotsi         Sweden
Saksa         Germany
Ranska         France
Tanska         Denmark

Some countries are more similar to other languages:
Japani            Japan
Kanada          Canada
Kiina              China
Egypti            Egypt
Italia               Italy
Portugali        Portugal
Espanja           Spain
Puola               Poland
Brasilia            Brazil

Talking about languages is very easy in Finnish. Usually the name of the language is the same word as the name of the country. The only difference is the first letter: when it's a country, the first letter is a capital letter, if it's a language, the first letter is not capitalized.

suomi                Finnish (language)
venäjä                Russian (language)
ruotsi                Swedish (language)
saksa                  German (language)
ranska                French (language)
tanska                Danish (language)
japani                Japanese (language)
kiina                  Chinese (language)
englanti              English (language)
italia                    Italian (language)
portugali            Portuguese (language)
espanja               Spanish (language)
puola                  Polish (language)
vietnam              Vietnamese (language)

When talking about nationalities, an ending is added to the name of the country. The ending is either 
-lainen or -läinen.

For most countries, the rule is very simple.
If the word has A, O or U, the ending is -lainen. 
If the word has none of these vowels, the ending is -läinen.

If the name of the country includes one of the letters A O or U, the ending is -lainen.

For example:
Ranska         France
ranskalainen a French person

Puola           Poland
puolalainen  a Pole

Saksa           Germany
saksalainen   a German

Espanja         Spain
espanjalainen   a Spaniard

Kongo            Congo
kongolainen   a Congolese (person)


However, for those countries which have none of the three, the ending is -läinen. For example:
Tšekki Czech Republic
tšekkiläinen a Czech (person)

Sveitsi Switzerland
sveitsiläinen a Swiss (person)

Egypti Egypt
egyptiläinen an Egyptian

Finnish words usually end in a vowel. However, if the word ends in a consonant, the letter I has to be added before the ending. In this case, the ending is -ilainen or -iläinen.

Vietnam
vietnamilainen a Vietnamese (person)

Israel
israelilainen an Israeli

Niger
nigeriläinen a Nigerien

Jemen
jemeniläinen a Yemeni

The next lesson:

3. The verb "to speak"