Vash-te-meh? Ya got me. Maybe Tapiotar can help out here. Terveisia Turusta is more or less TEAR vay se ahh TUU roose tah. Accent is always on the first syllable, and the tear rhymes with bear, not beer.
Oh, and the word for flyer is lentaja, from the verb lentaa, to fly. The ja ending generally means a person who does whatever the verb means.Also in this case the letter a should have two dots over it and rhyme with hat.
Definitely sow-na. Being partially Finnish myself, and living in a city with a large ethnic Finn population, its a sow-na.
Its one of the 20 or so words I can say in Finn. (The rest are mostly about food, holidays, please, thank you, and such)
I can see why the genuine word would be “sow-na,” because of the standard “au” pronunciation. But like many words borrowed by English from other languages, we’ve put our own spin on it, and I’ve always said “saw-na.”
Saw-na. I’ve only ever heard it pronounced that way.
According to Wikipedia, it seems New Englanders and at least some Canadians use [ɒ] for the merged vowel, which seems closer to [ɔ] than [a]. (Furthermore, many people lacking the merger actually realize the /ɔ/ in “saw” by a vowel better approximated as [ɒ]). So I’m not sure just how universally the merger can be said to go to [a] over alternatives.
Just putting it out there.
Sauna rhymes with Sauron.
Interesting how [a], when quoted, turns into:
There’s an “N” sound at the end of Sauna?
Score for da UP!
Heritage aside (especially since I personally don’t have a drop of Finn blood in me), I continue to use the sow-na pronunciation because to me, a real Finnish/Scandinavian sauna is different enough from the things most Americans call saunas that it deserves a different, stronger word.
I’ve grown up with saunas my entire life. The first is at our family cabin (“camp” in the UP) and is made in the traditional manner: the stove is heated with wood, and water is hauled up from the creek that flows a few yards away. It’s going on 40 years old by now, and the aged wood that was used to build it has mellowed and there’s a distinctive smell to the whole thing that you can’t get in younger saunas.
We also have a sauna in our house, as do many homes in the area. It’s very common; I’ve rented crappy student apartments that have saunas. It’s just part of the heritage. Our sauna is modern, with an electric stove and lights.
A real sauna is an actual bath; you feel clean when you come out. Forget these wuss hotel and gym saunas with the “don’t pour water on the stove” signs on the walls. A true sauna is wet heat, not dry heat. There must be a water source close by, preferably in the sauna. Water is put on the rocks so that you get a cloud of steam. Once it disperses, you wait a few minutes, then put more on.
When you get too hot, step outside. Stand in the snowbank for a while until you cool off. Back in the sauna. If you’re only mildly hot, pour some cool water over your head while you are in the sauna - perfect!
Back to linguistics, we have a sign up in our sauna changing room that, though humorous, actually does illustrate how the old Finns sound up here.
Read it out loud for the full effect (and so you can understand what you’re saying!)
Sauna Rules
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Sit on top pench at yuu own rdisk.
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Memper tis: Tuu muts teem kets yuu reel tissy. Yuu dumbel town ant prake yuu pones at own rdisk.
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If svet kets in yuu eyes, chust plink a coppla dimes.
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If yuu ket sliffer in yuu packsite from ta pench, ton’t holler tuu lowt. Naypers vil tink vee putsering a pic, ant pe looken for pork sops nex tay, ant ritavy pe asken: “Vhen ta hed chese pe ton?”
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Vhen yuu all ton (or if yuu lip on ta sope) pudit pack inta sope tis. Ton’t leef it melden onta pench.
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If yuu ket tuu hot ko chump in ta lake!
You forgot to mention the whipping with the birch-twigs 
Not just any dead old sticks, but in the summer we usually cut a handful of fresh birch-twigs with green juicy fresh leaves and bring them into the sauna.
In the sauna the birchtwig-bundle is put on the hot stones and given a splash of water to steam in, then we whack ourselves with it: arms, back, legs and the rest.
So, after a few rounds in and out of the sauna and the lake, one can sit down on the bench outside, pop open a beer and greet the world with a fresh odor of birch.
In winter when we don’t have fresh birch-twigs and the lake is frozen over, a good roll around in the snow does the trick.
The thing with the birch-twig whipping and rolling around in the snow, is that it gets you really really clean. All that muck on your body is almost like evaporated.
There is nothing more rejuvenating than a sauna (insert mellow smily)
Heh…this is the only thing I beg to differ with. Standing is in no way recommended. Sitting with a towel around you, drinking cold beer: yes. Rolling around in the snow: yes. Running down to the lake and hoping that the hole hasn’t frozen over while you were in the sauna: yes. Standing: nah.
By the way, that sign is a really good example of a STRONG Finnish accent.
Birch-twig bundles are known as “vihta” or “vasta”, depending on which part of Finland you come from. They’ve started to sell deep-frozen ones in supermarkets here, so you can theoretically get the fresh scent even in mid-winter, but I’ve found they’re not too thick and the leaves fall off really quickly.
Doesn’t sound right at all… The accent is always on the first syllable. Sounding that out in Finnish would give a spelling of “souuna”, which isn’t really reminiscent of any regional accent I can recall.
(It’s pronounced “sauna”.) 
Swedes would say bastu.
Beat me to it.
I just tried to get the Finn I live with interested in this debate but he just grumbled and rolled over to go back to sleep. Oh wait, he just muttered “sow-nah” and then says he doesn’t like my american-centric way of spelling it out phonetically. Apparently, the real pronunciation is something my wimpy American tongue cannot handle.
I’ve only heard “saw-na” or “sah-na” from American speakers. “Sow-na” I’ve only heard from Europeans or American speakers with a strong European influence in their speaking.
Born and raised Michigander here - I say ‘sow-na’, but I’ve heard Finns say it more like ‘sowoonah’. I lived in Wixom near this from 1978 to 1999. The camp was behind our subdivision and some nuts stayed there almost year-round.
Northeast US here, and I saw sawna. However, my Pop says sowna because he must have seen somewhere that that’s correct.
It’s pronounced Hyoo-stun.