Winning Over the In-laws - Finnish Style

If you are dating someone and it's getting serious, there comes a time when you need to meet the parents, and gain their acceptance.

This is always a tricky situation, and even more so if you are dating someone who is foreign.

Finnish Priority Boarding Woes

A couple of weeks ago, I flew from Gdansk (Poland) to Turku (Finland), because that's the glamourous life I have. 

As I waited to board, I was witness to a very Finnish situation, which had me sniggering under my breath.

Guest Post: KT Goes to Helsinki

The very first time I went to Helsinki, many years ago, it was for a business trip, in the middle of winter. It was very cold and very bleak, which led me to put Helsinki on my "been there, don't need to go there again, ever" list of cities. Little did I know...

Anyhow, my second guest blogger (the first was Santa) had an altogether different experience of travelling on business to the Finnish capital.

Almost Sisu

Finns are rightly proud of their long tradition of perseverance in the face of overwhelming challenges. This courage and determination is so much part of their character, that Finns even have a word for it: sisu.

Silly foreigners like me don’t always quite appreciate what qualifies as sisu though, as the following anecdote illustrates.

An Unfortunate Loss

This week, the winter returned with a vengeance in the UK. Temperatures have plummeted, and the weather forecasters are getting ready to roll out the hyperbolical meteorological clichés (Arctic conditions, Siberian winds, etc.). It was actually +2C/36F in Southern England today, but then what do Brits know about cold, huh?

Anyhow, for some unknown reason, I was reminded today of an anecdote involving my early fumblings with the Finnish language.

Breaking Wind Lappish Style

A few years ago, while on a summer holiday in Lapland, I went on a one-day guided cycle tour in the countryside around the small "town" of Inari.

At lunchtime, we stopped at a small cafe in the town centre. To my surprise, we left the expensive mountain bikes outside the cafe, unlocked. Our guide, Ate, explained that no one locked anything in Lapland as theft was very rare. He then proceeded to tell us a hilarious story about the pitfalls leaving vehicles unlocked.

The Taciturn Finns

The Finns are often portrayed as taciturn, but this has not been my experience: most Finns I know are quite talkative. However, pockets of "taciturness" do remain in Finland, especially amongst older Finns - as illustrated by the following annecdote.

Underthtanding Finnith Kidth

When you are learning a language, there are a few greater challenges than understanding young children.

In theory, it should be easy, as their vocabulary and their sentences are relatively simple. The problem however is their pronunciation.

S-Market Story

On many occasions now, I have used this blog to make fun of my own ineptitude in Finnish (check out for example the Spare Moose post). But now comes a chance to laugh at a Finnish person's struggle with English.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

It is often said that “out of the mouth of babes comes the truth”.

Sometimes that truth can be painful though.

Doctor, Doctor, My Car Needs Fixing!

When your knowledge of a language is fairly basic, understanding what people say is largely guess-work. It relies on trying to link logically together the words you recognise, and the gestures that accompany the narrative.

Sometimes though, some sentences seem to defy logic.

Never Trust a Dictionary!

At a recent event, I wanted to say a few nice words in Finnish about someone dear to me. As there is no way I could ad-lib something like that with my limited command of the language, I decided to prepare my mini-speech beforehand, in writing.

A good thing I did too, because I came close to making a bit of a faux-pas.

Got a Spare Moose?

“Hey Jyrki”, I shouted to my colleague through the small cubicle wall that separates our respective workspaces. “Do you have spare hirvi [moose]?”

You see, even though my Finnish is very, very basic, I like to pepper my English sentences with Finnish words – just to show off my hard-learnt vocabulary to my work colleagues in Helsinki.

Being a Snail

Yesterday, one of my co-workers told me in Finnish: “Tomorrow, I will be a snail”.

Even accounting for Finnish eccentricity, aspiring to be a snail is quite an odd thing.

An Unimpressive Story

A couple of years ago, I had a little misshap down an unlit country lane in the UK. It was a bit of an unpleasant experience, yet when I related this story to a Finnish friend shortly afterwards, I received no sympathy.

The story is as follows....

Mini-Post: Rubber Aunt

Talking to a Finnish friend the other day, instead of saying “sinä olet kummitäti” (“you are a god-mother”), I claimed “sinä olet kumitäti” (“you are a rubber aunt”).

That dropped "m" meant I had some explaining to do...

Mini-Post: Cameras

Yesterday, I asked a Finn: "How do you say camera in Finnish? Is it elokuvakone [film machine]?". The Finn looked at me with a smile and answered: "Err, no... it's kamera!"

Sometimes, I make Finnish just a little harder work than it actually is!

Turning Japanese

In the previous post about polar questions, I mentioned a bizarre connection between Finnish and Japanese. This reminded me of an amusing story that happened to one of my Finnish friends while on holiday in Bali a few years ago.