Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
But despite a sometimes fitful adjustment to its post-Soviet reality, Estonia is a wel-
coming place. Younger Estonians speak English—it's the first choice these days at school.
Estonian is similar to Finnish and equally difficult. Only a million people speak Estonian
worldwide. Two useful phrases to know are
“Tänan”
(TAH-nahn; “Thank you”) and
“Ter-
viseks!”
(TEHR-vee-sehks; “Cheers!”). The farther you go beyond the touristy zones, the
more you see that Russian is still Estonia's second language. If you know some Russian,
use it. It's the mother tongue of more than 40 percent of Tallinners (many of whom have
no intention of learning Estonian).
