Finnish from Afar Blog

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

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...

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 t...

Yesterday, one of my co-workers told me in Finnish: “Tomorrow, I will be a snail”. Even accounting for Finnish eccentricity, aspiring to b...

When I began spending a lot of time in Helsinki, I figured it would be nice to get to know the city. So I bought a travel guide. I started...

On 17 April 2011, Finland held parliamentary elections. Seven weeks later, the country is still without a new government! Problem? What pr...

Apparently, the morning-after pill is called “katumuspilleri” in Finnish, meaning “contrition pill” or “remorse pill”. Does that mean Finn...

When I first decided to make a little effort to learn Finnish, I began reading every label I could find. Before long, I learnt that the Finn...

In every language, there are words that have several meanings. But how about a word that means one thing and virtually the opposite also?