The language annoyance here pertains to Finland and not to Finnish language (which is beyond me aside from a few simple phrases and perhaps a hundred or so words).
because I speak German I understand written Swedish fairly well, though when they talk fast I cannot understand a thing.
Nominally Finland is a bilingual country - and not just nominally as I encountered a few semi-rural visually half extinct Swedish speaking communities between say Kotka and Borga and of course Åland islands still speak Swedish.
Thus said I am surprised at why there are so many monolingual Finnish-only websites
like for example this real estate portal
http://kuluttaja.etuovi.com
This is surprising as making a Swedish interface for it would not be that difficult. In fact I would have made an English and Russian one as well as Russian Thieving Classes and those who serve them are now a major buying force in Finland's (though not necessarily Finnish) recreational real estate market.
I was looking at the Finnish site thinking about resurrecting, not the Baltic independence which I want to be put to a final and irrevocable end, but my own real estate search engine which is like 5 years old (!) now - http://realpetersburg.ru/ru. It is dormant. Although only Russian and English are visible and the thing easily switches between the languages, there is also a Finnish module (translated by an Estonian friend of mine) as well as German and French ones.
Anyway, why etuovi.com
is only in Finnish and not Finnish and Swedish is surprising considering that making a second language interface takes so little effort. For me at least navigating through a Swedish language website would be much easier.
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