Own country strawberry

This holiday episode is based on random discussions in Finland.

First: Two weird Finnish sayings.

Oma maa mansikka, muu maa mustikka.

Own country strawberry, another country blueberry.

The meaning of this saying is "your own country (Finland, obviously) is better than other countries", but how this relates to strawberries and blueberries is a mystery to us Finns too.

Mieluummin tätä syö kuin selkäänsä ottaa.

I rather eat that than (literally) take it on the back (that is, get beaten up).

An unenthusiastic way to compliment food, and also a semi-funny saying, because purely linguistically it can also mean that you rather eat the food than smear it on your back.

(Compare to "like burning the ice".)

And second: "did you know about etymology?", that is, two random etymological facts

Matrix derives etymologically from "mater" (mother) and in Latin, matrix means womb.

In Helsinki (and in a couple of other cities, too), the underground train is called "metro" which derives from "metropoli" (in English, "metropolis"). And the "metro" in "metropolis" derives from Greek "meter" which means "mother".

What is allowed to be?

The main Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat publishes a controversial comic, Fingerpori. It is an awesome piece of culture, and offensive on multiple levels, but sadly, most jokes are based on wordplay, so I cannot share the joy with my non-Finnish-speaking friends.

But today they have a joke which works both in Finnish and in German:

http://www.hs.fi/fingerpori/s1305691321689

Wittgenstein am Imbiss:
"Was darf es sein?"
"Die Frage ist sinnlos."

In English it doesn't work:
Wittgenstein at a hotdog stand:
"What is allowed to be?" "What is allowed to be it?" (This is a slightly old-fashioned (at least in Finnish) way to ask what the customer would like to have.)
"The question makes no sense."

With false friends like this, I don't need enemies

To get this blog back on track, we'll have a look at words which have different meanings in different languages in a way that might bring unintentional comedy into your life.

persze in Hungarian: of course & perse in Finnish: ass

I had a Hungarian colleague in Finland, and he told this story: He was sitting on a bus, talking on the phone with his mom, going like "persze, persze" (of course, of course) in a bored tone of voice. An older Finnish lady was giving him the most angry and confused looks for saying "ass, ass" in a public place.

latte in Italian: milk & Latte in German: block of wood

It's a bit hard to explain what "Latte" exactly means. As far as I know, a very close Finnish translation would be "parru". The closest English translation I can come up with would be "block of wood", in the context of male genitalia. For example, "Morgenlatte" is "morning wood".

So, in Germany you need to be careful to order a "Cafe Latte" or "Latte Macchiato". If you order just "eine Latte", you might not get what you wanted. Or what do I know.

Latte?

... or a Latte?

Additional information: My colleagues kindly pointed out that "Latte" is in fact not this thick piece of wood, but a thin one, which is used e.g., between walls and floors (in English "lath", in Finnish "rima"). So here the German language and the Finnish language differ; in Finnish the double meaning is only associated with the thick type.

More information here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnittholz

ficka in Swedish: pocket & ficken in German: to fuck

This one is best explained in pictures.

A "pocket info" we saw in some office in Finland (note the relevant picture) which we thought might amuse our German friends:

(Swedish is the second official language in Finland, so brochures like this are in both languages.)

Ficklampa ("pocket lamp" = flashlight)...

... or a ficklampa?

pussi in Finnish: bag & pussy in English

And now I've reached the point of "I better stop now. Right. Now."

Deutsch kann ich schon

The standard whine of all foreigners trying to learn German is: The genders for nouns make no sense. Der Löffel, die Gabel, das Messer (the spoon masculine, the fork feminine, the knife neuter). And der Betrieb, die Firma, das Unternehmen (the company masculine, the company feminine, the company neuter).

I tried this whine on my colleagues in a slightly different form: normally nouns ending with e are feminine, but then there is "der Name", how annoying is that. This whine was a mistake. They told me that it makes perfect sense, since "name" is masculine in Latin.

Indeed, it sometimes feels like I should learn Latin to be able to learn German. At least it would help.

For example:
"Essential" derives from to Latin "essentia" which refers to "being". Similarly, "essential" in German, "wesentlich", contains "wesen" which somehow is the same verb stem as "sein" (to be), e.g., "ist gewesen" (has been). The verb "essen" (to eat), is, however, not related.

And undoubtedly knowing both German and Latin would be useful:

Unterhalten sich zwei Freunde. Sagt der eine: "Ich lerne jetzt Latein." Fragt der andere: "Warum?" "Ich habe gehört dass man in Himmel Latein spricht." "Und woher weißt du dass du in den Himmel kommst?" "Das weiß ich nicht, aber Deutsch kann ich schon."

(Two friends are discussing. One says: "I'm studying Latin nowadays." The other asks: "Why?" "I heard that they speak Latin in heaven." "And how do you know you'll go to heaven?" "That I don't know, but I already speak German.")

I didn't read him yet

A couple of weeks ago I posted about a weird sauna experience which was especially surprising because everything had been so normal so far. And of course things started to get even weirder after that.

There is a Finnish band, Eläkeläiset, which makes humppa (it's a music style) "covers" of famous rock songs (in Finnish of course). Like this: original, cover. And apparently this band is a Thing in Germany. We went to see their gig, and it was a weird cultural experience.

However, this blog post is not about that band or that gig, but I have a real (kitchen) linguistic theme here:

Germans have a cute habit of using the pronoun "it" when they talk about a baby, even when he/she is their own and the gender of the baby is definitely known. Like this: "Our baby was born a month ago. It only sleeps two hours max at a time."


"It" has actually been used when talking about babies in English too, but it's nowadays getting rarer.

I'm not 100% sure (hey, this is kitchen linguistics), but I think that Germans use "it" when talking about babies because of the gender system of the German language.

German naturally has separate pronouns for he, she and it (er, sie, es), like in English. But since inanimate objects also have a gender in German, the pronouns are used a bit differently than in English.

For example, Germans say: "Ich habe einen Brief bekommen, aber ich habe ihn noch nicht gelesen." - "I got a letter, but I didn't read him yet." A letter is a masculine, so "he" is used when referring to it. So, he is used with masculine nouns, she with feminine nouns and it with neuter nouns.

I've never heard a German make a "I didn't read him yet" type of a mistake when speaking English. Maybe Germans have a mental model where all English nouns are neuter.

Baby is neuter, das Baby, in German, and that's probably why "it" is often used when talking about babies, but always in a loving tone of voice. I find it awesome because of two subtle connotations: 1) a baby is not a "real human" yet, but it will become one when it grows up 2) babies are genderless, i.e., their gender is irrelevant.

In Finnish, we only have one word (hän) for he and she, and a separate word for it (se). So, "hän" is for humans, and "se" is for non-humans. But in spoken language, we also say "se" when talking about humans, so we really need to use only one pronoun.

This is also the reason why I cannot get he / she / him / her / his / her right in English - mostly I just randomly choose a gender and rely on it being correct in 50% of the cases. This leads into epic utterances like "she got his act together".

But when I say "her wife" or "his boyfriend", I'm usually not confusing genders, because both exist in my circle of friends. And sorry, all transgender folks, I don't use the wrong pronouns because your gender is so confusing - I use the wrong pronouns for everybody.

Like burning the ice

Today I'm going to entertain you with Finnish sayings.

kuin paita ja peppu - like a shirt and a bum
Used to describe very close friends who do everything together. "They are like a shirt and a bum."

kuin jäitä polttelisi - like burning the ice
A suitably unenthusiastic reply to "how is it going". For example, "How's your work?" "Like burning the ice."

In Finland, if you're asked how it's going, you're not supposed to say anything overly positive. The scale is from "it's okay" downwards. So "like burning the ice" means that "oh well, nothing special to complain about, but it's work, so, you know, sometimes I'd rather just sleep in and not go to the office in the morning".

kuin ripulissa piereskelisi - like farting while having a diarrhea
An action that needs to be carried out extremely carefully.

I think I'll stop here, and say like we Finns say after a good party: "Kiitos ja anteeksi." - "Thank you and I'm so sorry".

Zwangsentspannt

Today I will hijack the language blog for telling about the weirdest thing I've done in Germany so far. When we moved the Germany, I had the problem that everything was so normal, and we didn't have any funny anecdotes to tell to our friends and family who stayed in Finland. Now, after 2 years, I have something to tell, so here we go...

In most countries there is a form of entertainment where a naked person entertains an audience who is wearing clothes.

But in Germany, the inverse occupation also exists - Saunameister (sauna master) is a clothed person entertaining a naked audience by throwing water on the hot stones in a sauna, circulating the hot steam by waving a towel and flapping it in the air, and telling jokes on the go (because of the language barrier, I only understand a subset of the jokes, sadly). The most advanced Saunameister I've seen even uses a towel flag for the circulating, and that thing is torturously efficient.

You're supposed to find the experience relaxing (entspannend), if you don't, you will be "Zwangsentspannt" (forcefully relaxed).

Curiously, there is no good translation of "Zwang" in English, even though it translates perfectly well in other languages I know (tvång in Swedish, pakko in Finnish). Zwang describes something compulsory / unavoidable / something you must do, but it's not an adjective but a noun. You could say "wearing a helmet is compulsory" and "Zwang" would be the "compulsory" except that it's a noun.

There are also other Meisters in Germany: Bademeister (bath master) is looking after kids in a swimming pool and Hausmeister (house master) is approximately a janitor. Funnily, some Hausmeisters (but not all) are "vahtimestari" in Finnish, that derives from Wachtmeister (watch master), but Wachtmaster is something different than Hausmeister...

From the Finnish perspective, the Saunameister is exotic in a funny way, and the excessive nudity is only mildly culture shocking. So now to the weird stuff: Klangschalenaufguss.

Aufguss (literally "onpour", auf = on, guss = a noun from the verb "pour") is what Saunameister does: pouring water on the stones, and the related activities for circulating the steam.

Klangschale is apparently translated in English as "singing bowl" (never heard), and it's a metal bowl which produces sound when you hit it with a stick. Some esoteric stuff they say.

And Klangschalenaufguss is naturally an Aufguss where the Saunameister alternates between throwing water onto the stones and rings these bowls. I might have missed the esoteric benefits. I tried not to giggle.

The next weird thing doesn't have any linguistic connections, but I need to tell it nevertheless: The crazy Germans have a sauna with an aquarium in it. And soothing music. So you can watch the fish swim around and listen to the music while you sweat. Finns, let me reiterate: Germans have an aquarium in a sauna.

The experience culminated in Salzaufguss, (salt onpour), where you first do the first round of Aufguss (pouring the water and waving the towel) normally, then go out, rub salt on you skin, come back, and do one more round of Aufguss.

When standing outside (luckily the weather was warm), naked, rubbing big handfuls of salt on my skin, among 50 or so Germans doing the same, I said "This is the weirdest thing I've done in Germany so far".