Learn Finnish with Santa

How good is your Finnish? Not that good? Well, there is someone that can help you. At least with the most important phrases. And pretty surely you know that someone quite well. It is Santa Claus.

Pimp your Finnish for free

You have the feeling that your Finnish could use a little freshen up? The Finnish e-learning company Skilltize offers free conversation lessons (level B1 = intermediate) for several languages right now. You can already enroll for Finnish and German. Spanish, English and Chinese are still to come.

The class takes place in a virtual classroom in small groups of up to six participants and a teacher. Check it out!

Which way should I go?

I love those two Finnish signs at a parking lot in Espoo. I always imagine how helpless a tourist might feel here that doesn't know a word of Finnish.

What the signs are trying to say is, if you want to go up, go left and if you want to go out, go right.

Translate online

Sanajkirja means dictionary. You might have one at home translating from Finnish to your mother tongue. If you don’t there is a very handy website that can help you translating into 24 different languages. On sanakirja.org you can not only translate from Finnish into any of the other languages. All combinations are possible.

Sanakirja.org and its English version webxicon.org are a project of Tmi Jonne Jyrylä and are based on wiktionary articles. The webxicon database consists of 5 462 228 words and 5 902 080 translations and gets you much further than Google Translate. A mobile version is available as well.

YLE Mondo – Your foreign language radio in Finland

Understanding TV in Finland as a foreigner is quite easy thanks to lots of international programs. But did you know that you can also listen to the radio in your mother tongue here? YLE Mondo broadcasts news and radio shows from all over the world in several different languages. 

The majority of the program is in English and comes from the BBC in London and NPR in Washington. But YLE Mondo also has program in Estonian, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian and Spanish but also in easy Finnish.

Online you can find their program and check when your favorite show is on air. Yle Mondo broadcasts 24 hours and is available in the capital area at 97,5 MHz (cable 107,3) and throughout Finland through Yle Digital TV services.

spring vs. winter

While people in the Southern and Central Europe are enjoying temperatures around 20 degrees here in Finland you still have to take your hat and gloves with you whenever you leave the house. And even though also here the spring slowly starts and you feel the sun getting stronger every day some days might still surprise with snow. Finns call that “taka talvi”, the last attempts of the winter to come back. With 0 to 8 degrees Helsinki is also still much colder then Stockholm which is just a few hundred kilometers further west. The reason for that is that the Gulf Stream doesn’t influence the climate in Finland as strongly as it does in Norway and Sweden.

But not just melting snow and ice show that the winter is over. Also the first blooming flowers welcome the spring to the Finnish capital.

the Finnish calendar

Well, whoever had the possibility to take a closer look at a Finnish calendar has already figures out that Finns decided to name their months completely different from all the other countries in Europe. If you haven’t learned them at some point you’ll be lost. Their names seem quite random at the first glace. But actually they are not. This might help you:

The months       kuukauden       

kuu = moon; So it has the same origin as the English word

January:              tammikuu         

tammi = oak; Here referring to the tree trunk meaning the center or middle. It describes the January as the middle, the solid heart and center of the winter.

February:            helmikuu            

helmi = pearl; Have you seen Finland in February with all its white snow and shining ice? Then you won’t have any problems understanding the origin of this name.

March:                 maaliskuu

maa = land, soil; The snow slowly starts melting, releasing the soil that has been hidden throughout the long Finnish winter.

April:                     huhtikuu

huhti = kaski = new Field; April is described as the month when to prepare the fields.

May:                     toukokuu

touko = peltotyöt = work on the field; It’s time to do the important work on the field.

June:                    kesäkuu

 kesä = Summer; Well, that is self explaining.

July:                      heinäkuu

heinä = grass, hay; What better word would there be to describe July?

August:                               elokuu

elo = viljasato = harvest; Time to collect the fruits for the hard work in the spring.

September:       syyskuu

syys = syksy = fall/autumn; No explanation needed I guess.

October:             lokakuu

loka = kura ja lika = mud and dirt; Take out the rubber boots.

November:        marraskuu

marras = kuollut = dead; The trees have lost their leaves, the nights get longer and longer and if it’s not pitch black then the sky is gray. 

December:         joulukuu

joulu = Christmas; Sleigh bells ring and Santa Claus is coming to town.