Volcano Erupts Near Finnish Village

Last week, a volcano erupted near a small Finnish village, throwing hot ash and smoke thousands of feet into the air, forcing thousands of people to flee.

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.

Ten Short Finnish Jokes

Finnish jokes seem to involve primarily 3 subjects:

	- Drinking
	- Being taciturn
	- Swedes

Here is a small selection of short Finnish jokes collected from various sources (I'll keep the longer jokes for a later date).

Disclaimer: Laughs not guaranteed.

Your Name Means Nothing To Me

One of the many challenges of trying to learn Finnish is that the vocabulary is so very different from other languages. I have already mentioned how words don't come easy to me, not least because I have a terrible memory.

As a result, I have had to develop various strategies to try and remember words. One of these is an obsessive analysis of Finnish surnames.

Top of the Finn-Pops

Have you wondered how many Finnish acts have actually appeared in the UK's top-40 pop charts? Oh, so it's just me then.

Well the answer (since you don't ask) is: not many.

Language Oddity #4: No Future in Finland's Dreaming

It might be unfair to say that that Finns are pessimists, but they definitely don't believe in the future.

Future tense that is.

Hail to the Juhannus Sausage!

Today is the eve of Juhannus, the celebration of the mid-summer solstice. Well, the solstice was technically a few days ago, but this is the nearest weekend to it.

Juhannus is also, it seems, a celebration of the Finnish sausage.

Say “Ääääää”!

In the previous post, I explained how I thought my colleague was going to become a snail. The confusion arose as a result of my inability to distinguish the sound “a” from the sound “ä” in Finnish.

Well, it seems I am not alone in suffering from irritable vowels syndrome, if the messages I received from other ulkomaalaiset (foreigners) are anything to go by.

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.