Estonian phrasebook

Estonian (eesti keel) is a Finno-Ugric language spoken by roughly 1.1 million people in Estonia. Though closely related to Finnish and distantly to Hungarian, Estonian bears almost no resemblance to any other European language in either vocabulary or grammar.

The lack of Indo-European language structures makes Estonian a rather difficult language to learn. The fact that it has more words of Indo-European origin than Finnish, for instance, makes it slightly easier to learn. Even though many people in Estonia (especially young people) speak English and many of the older generation understand Russian (though Russian has an association with the Soviet and Russian imperial times and starting a conversation with native Estonian speakers in Russian can be perceived as rude), an attempt at some basic phrases will definitely impress the locals and you will receive an enthusiastic welcome.