I read an article about the Kalevala (in English) which speaks a little about the Finnish language and pronounciation.

The article stated that the Finnish alphabet has only 19 letters, and that the letters B C D F G are not native to Finnish, that they only appear in words derived from foreign languages.

Can any native Finnish speakers comment on this?

Our alphabets are in order (a-ö)
So, we do understand it all

I am not a specialist to tell facts, but we use 29 letters in written language. I don´t know, how many they are in spoken language. Letters B,D,F and G don´t belong to older finnish, or the Kalevala language, I think. There are many dialects or close languages, for example karelian language and dialect, which may have or have had also those letters.

Finnish is a fun language.

Is it true, that in general, the emphasis is on the first syllable in Finnish?

I thought I remember this comment from Jorma Panula but it might have been a very general idea.

Yes, the emphasis is most definitely on the first syllable.

The same can be said of Czech, in fact, it is a rule without any exceptions whatsoever, every single word in the language is pronounced that way and the accent is quite strong.

Yup, first syllable emphasis. It's HEL-sinki, not Hel-SINK-i.

The Finnish Ambassador to the Czech Republic, His Excellency Mr. Jorma Inki sent me an e-mail with the followin contribution to this discussion, which I am honoured to post here in his name:
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The Finnish language had originally bh, dh and gh (like in Spanish ' vino' , English 'those' and Spanish g in 'algabaratas'. They were the tenuis forms of p, t and k. Papu/pabhun äiti/äidhin, halko/halghon, kenkä/kenghän.

These fricatives or spirants disappeared from the Carelian language very early (paun, äi'in, halon; they were simply left away like mostly in Estonian, too), but somewhere in western Finland the 'those'-fonem (dental spirant) was still recorded at the end of the 19th century. In the Western dialects, the tenuis forms of p, t and k were replaced by -/v, r/l/t, or -/v, which were not always admitted into the written language (pavun, äirin, halvon, kenkän).

In written Finnish b,d,and g (originally the spirants) either disappeared or also occasionally persisted, and were soon to be pronounced like ordinary b, d and g, and this is now the binding norm for cultivated Finnish. So, in literary Finnish these indoeuropean phonems have 'always' existed. We have nowadays to say pavun (lamentably not pabun), äidin, halon (not halgon) and kengän. But there are still Western Finns who may say 'rario' or 'ratio' for radio. Whoever says 'kenkän', comes possibly from Turku. (Turku/Turun - no more Turghun or Turgun).

I am English and currently learning Finnish, and read in my 'teach yourself' book that that is the case. They also have more vowells than us - not actualy characters but characters with differing forms of accents.

I hope they've updated the Teach Yourself book since I bought mine (many, many years ago). In my version - if you could manage to wade through the preliminary grammar section, which was designed to confound the most ardent of scholars - Lesson 1 would impart such useful everyday phrases as: 'There is a magnificent flock of starlings in the vicinity of the church tower this fine autumnal morning' but leave you guessing if you wanted to get a taxi to the airport or order a beer...

This is the most beautiful sentence in Finnish language according to many: Alavilla mailla hallan vaaraa- Danger of frost in low areas! For singers Finnish makes you work harder, since we use a-o-u -vowels a lot, and they are being formed in the back of your mouth. I always give extra credit for those non-native singers, who take up the challenge to perform Sibelius vocal works.

That happened in Manchester a week or two ago... Hallé Choir singing Tulen synty, Oma maa, Saarella palaa, Venematka, Min rastas raataa and Sydämeni laulu. Soloist in Tulen synty was Finnish though - Juha Uusitalo. By the way is he the guy from Lordi?

Uusitalo, he can't be from Lordi. But you made me go to their website

Andrew - yes, I think my version has been updated as I haven't come accross that sentence. I'm firmly in Kiitos, hyvaa! territory at the moment though. It comes with a couple of CDs - but when you actually consult some 'real-life' Finns the nuances of pronunciation come across far more readily.