06 November 2013

Very basic Estonian vocabulary for travellers

 
terviseks!
= «cheers!»

This is what you say when you drink alcohol with somebody.

t is pronounced without aspiration, like in «stop» or «stereo», not like in «tea»
er is pronounced similar to «er» in «very»
seks is pronounced like «sex»
The stress is on the first syllable: [TER-vi-seks]. Do not pronounce the word with some kind of a secondary accent like [TER-vi-SEKS]. That would sound weird.

Just in case you're curious, -seks is a frequently-occurring grammatical ending in Estonian and has nothing to do with sex. The literal meaning of terviseks is «to (the) health».





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