Ä in Swedish is an æ sound.
Ä in Finnish is a pitched A sound, like the A in “cat”.
The pitched “a” in Swedish is the default one.
Wikipedia lists both "cat" and the Finnish "mäki" under æ: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vo...
Do you have some example words that would show the difference?
Well, mostly hearing people say the words will be telling.
Gävle in Sweden: https://forvo.com/word/g%C3%A4vle/
Linnanmäki in Finland: https://forvo.com/word/linnanm%C3%A4ki/
In the Finnish example you can hear both the soft “en” (linnan) and the higher pitched “” (maki) which is triggered with umlauts;
Where the Swedish A is softened by umlauts in the Gävle example.
Re:Why English doesn't use accents
by 3836293648 on Monday July 07, 2025 @02:36PM
(#44493346)
That's an american cat then, because that sounds crazy to my ears
It's "ä" and "e" which have swapped uses, but it's not exactly consistent (e.g. "Järnvägstorget" where first ä is close to the Finnish ä, second ä is closer to e but so is the e at the end)