This article is in partnership with Day Translations.

Do you know what ‘bastu’ means?

I recently learned this word through Eurovision, as there is a song from Sweden but sang by Finnish artists that contains the word ‘bastu’, which means ‘sauna’ in Swedish.

Finland is the homeland of sauna and that’s where the word sauna originates from. Going to the sauna is an essential part of Finnish culture and it is both a communal experience and a way to keep healthy, especially during the harsh winter months.

Why does Eurovision bring people together? From listening to themed parties, Eurovision is a topic that stimulates discussion, as music taste around Europe is widely different.

Eurovision Is a Popular Topic of Conversation on Reddit

On Reddit, the Eurovision community is very active and one of the comments that stood out to me was that this European song competition is motivating people to learn a new language.

For example, one Redditer said that they wanted to learn Italian after the Italian band Mäneskin won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2021 with the song “Zitti e Buoni” (which means “be quiet and be good” or, colloquially, “shut up”).

Another Redditer discovered Dutch music through Eurovision and proceeded to explore more of the Dutch music scene, even recommending their favourite Dutch singers and bands in the forum.

Somebody else said they love the Finnish language since watching two Eurovision contestants from Finland in 2021 and 2023 (the Finland 2021 entry was Blind Channel with “Dark Side” and the

Finland 2023 entry was Käärijä with “Cha Cha Cha”.

Lithuania and its language has also captured many European hearts, as its music has proven popular among Eurovision fans over the years.

Probably one of the most interesting comments was from a Redditer who fell in love with the Portuguese language after hearing Portuguese songs at Eurovision and they ended up moving to Lisbon from Germany, staying in Portugal for 20 years.

Even the BBC Recognised the Power of Eurovision and its Use of Languages

With so many countries competing for the top spot at Eurovision there is also a multitude of languages.

In 2025 some artists have decided to sing only in English, others only in their native language and others to do both, for example by having some parts of their song in their own language and parts in English. Ukraine has chosen to sing in Ukrainian and English for its competition entry entitled “Birds of Pray”.

In a 2021 article the BBC looked at how Eurovision has put the spotlight on a multitude of European languages. The average person may not be familiar with languages such as Slovenian or Bulgarian, but this song competition gives airtime to lesser known languages.

Artists have chosen to add some cultural nuances in their songs by introducing sentences from minority languages. For example, in 2021 the Eurovision Dutch entry song included some words in the local language of Suriname because of the song’s author heritage.

Earlier on in 1989 Switzerland used an almost unknown language called Romansh, which is spoken by only 0.5% of the Swiss population, even though it is the country’s fourth official language.

In many decades Eurovision introduced the general public to so many languages as featured in hundreds of songs.

Photo by Loegunn Lai on Unsplash