Saturday 23 July 2011

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.

Monday 18 July 2011

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.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

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.

Thursday 7 July 2011

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.

Saturday 2 July 2011

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.