Guldlock på finska...

Whooa! Blogger snackar finska med mig! Det var en skrämmande upplevelse! Så går det då man bloggar från främmande datorer...

Och just därför får ni nu en snabblektion i finska. Helt gratis! Var noga med uttalet bara!

WHEN FINNS SPEAK - EVERYBODY LISTEN
(it's just that nobody else understands) By Bill farmer
(Knight-Ridder newspapers)

SOMEWHERE IN BERLITZ - Finnish is easy. All you do is tape-record English And then play it backwards.

The language itself is like the Finns themselves - it has nothing to do with Russia or Sweden, despite their proximity. Finnish, I think, was invented by an ancient king who commanded the people in his dominion to speak like him upon the penalty of death.

The monarch's name I shall give as Toivo I, or Toivo the stutterer. It was Toivo's lingual philosophy that why use one letter when two or three would do. Take the word for cigarette lighter. It is savukkeensytytin, which is the reason why so many Finns carry matches.

When the Finns start a word they see how many foreigners they can weed out on the first syllable. Take the Finnish word for "93". The first three letters are "yhd". That eliminates a lot of competition right there. For the full Finnish word for "93" I would advise you fasten your seat belts and put on your crash helmet.

Here it goes - "yhdeksänkymmentäkolme". According to Berlitz, that is pronounced simply "EWHdayksaenKEWMmayntaeKOALmay".

Finns have died of old age trying to count to 100.

Part of the problem with the Finnish language is that the Finns don't mess around with little bitsy words at all. If they are going to use the word "the" or "a" or "by" they just stick it onto a nearby word as an ending.

And don't think you are going to get away with not pronouncing every letter either. Nothing is wasted in Finnish. Sometimes, when they use a couple or three vowels in a row, they'll put two little dots over the tops of some of them just to break the monotony.

Those little dots mean something. In the word "pencil sharpener", which is spelled "kynänteroitin", they put two little dots over the "a" and that means it is pronounced like "a" and an "e" slopped together. It also means that you are going to find a lot of dull pencils in Finland. It is the only language I know of where the phonetic spelling is more complicated than the regular spelling.

To say "pencil sharpener" in Finnish, for example, you should start with a bottle of good Finnish beer. Take a deep breath, roll back your eyes and say: KEWnae (run the "a" and "e" together now, remember?) nTAYR (stop here and have a sip of beer) roa (then comes a very, very small "i" that fools a lot of people, but, without it the word means "spinach" or something entirely different from "pencil sharpener") ittin (more beer, please).

Okay, all together now: "KEWnaenTAYroaittin!"
There now, wasn't that easy? Where's the bottle opener?

During a recent visit to Finland I never saw a crossword puzzle. The papers weren't large enough to cover both horizontal and vertical I guess.

The word for "no" is "aye", which means yes in English, and the word "hei" means hello or goodbye depending on what direction you're going.

Now the word for "yes" is simple. It is "kyllä". The trouble is, nobody uses it. They all say "joo" or "yoa" or "yo", which naturally, is not Finnish at all, but is Swedish. To say "yes, yes" they all say "yo-yo". I can't imagine what the Finnish word for "yo-yo" is, but it must be dandy-dandy.

Finnish is related to Hungarian by a previous marriage. That's why the second language of Finland is, of course, Swedish. Everyone speaks English, however, so don't worry if you ever go there.

For an emergency, I tried to learn the Finnish expression for "Get me a doctor, quick", which is "noutakaa nopeasti lääkäri", but by the time I memorized it I was well again.

Så där jag. Nu ska jag kanske klara av att kommunicera lite med finskspråkiga Blogger jag också...

Det verkar bli en fin dag. Trevligt att vara ute och kika på Mumindalens andra hörn igen. Det enda otrevliga som hände var att då jag klev in på mitt rum i gästhemmet för första gången igår kväll - så var det alldeles uppenbart använt! Och nu går vi över till sagan om Guldlock och de tre björnarna. Fast i den här versionen är det bara jag som är björn. Och Guldlock har jag (tack och lov) inte sett till ännu.

Någon hade legat på sängen (inte säker om denna individ legat i sängen, i som i under täcket, dock). Någon hade slängt busskvitton på bordet och skräp i papperskorgen. Och någon har tyckt att det var en bra idé att använda handdukarna.

Det var det där sista som fick mig att bli på riktigt dåligt humör. Om man stövlar in på gästhemmet i fråga så där niotiden på kvällen finns det nämligen inte en personalkotte på plats. Och jag vägrar att använda handdukar med stora fläckar av underlagskräm på (inte ens i min nyans)!

Nåja, men jag har fått löfte om rena handdukar idag, nu då personalen behagade visa upp sig.

Jag hoppas verkligen att Guldlock håller sig borta från mitt rum idag!