Trying to find a word

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Wobo
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Trying to find a word

Post by Wobo » Sun Nov 08, 2015 12:30 am

Hello,

I am trying to help my wife and I have not had any luck. My wife is of Finnish heritage and her Grandmother keeps talking about an oatmeal type meal. Sounding it out it sounds like BOO-Da-Wah. I have tried for quite a long time looking at different foods, trying to find the word. Does anyone have any help they can offer?

Thank you very much for your time.

Phil



Trying to find a word

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Beep_Boop
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Beep_Boop » Sun Nov 08, 2015 10:47 am

That "Wah" in the end tells me that the word was told to your wife in the partitive form in some sentence. The fact that you used "Boo" tells me that, throughout the time and verbal transfer between non-Finnish-speakers, that pronunciation might be a bit far from the actual word, because the letter "B" doesn't intrinsically exist in the Finnish language, so I doubt it would be used to describe Finnish Finnish food. Combined with the oatmeal part, I'd say the word is "puuro" or "puuroa", which is porridge. Check Google Images https://www.google.fi/search?q=puuro&so ... s&tbm=isch

If that's what you're looking for, then it's very interesting how the pronunciation was twisted and changed. I mean.. the R turned into a D!
Every case is unique. You can't measure the result of your application based on arbitrary anecdotes online.

Jukka Aho
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Jukka Aho » Sun Nov 08, 2015 4:00 pm

Check out this definition for puuro as well:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/marian1/gourmet/gl_finn.htm#p

Curiously, that entry makes only a passing mention of kaurapuuro, or oatmeal, which I think should be the default translation of the word in most cases, unless the type is specified in more detail. Other fairly common types are mannapuuro (wheat semolina porridge) and riisipuuro (rice porridge; associated with Christmas.) (Those all do have more specific definitions in the same dictionary, though, so you might want to take a look at those as well.)

A couple of puuro ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF8D8zKg9Co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6b--vJrEcc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM-GdMhiYPs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYWLU8-uaQ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwIh5ScdHXg
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Rob A.
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Rob A. » Mon Nov 09, 2015 11:19 pm

Sorry can't resist...

How about that traditional Finnish "poverty food"....ruispuuro:


Image

...Of course, it would only be ....voisilmän kanssa ...on good days.... :)

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Beep_Boop
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Beep_Boop » Tue Nov 10, 2015 1:26 am

Whaaa?! Poverty food? What the hell, man! :lol:
I eat ruispuuro almost every morning! So delicious and nutritious!
Every case is unique. You can't measure the result of your application based on arbitrary anecdotes online.

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sinikala
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by sinikala » Tue Nov 10, 2015 2:59 am

adnan wrote:Whaaa?! Poverty food? What the hell, man! :lol:
I eat ruispuuro almost every morning! So delicious and nutritious!
I love porridge, me.... but ruispuuro is vile.

First year I was here I went on a course where traditional ruispuuro - unsweetened - made with water, not milk was served at breakfast.
It was awful. In english speaking countries, it's called gruel, the archetypal poverty food.

Image
Image

FinnGuyHelsinki
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by FinnGuyHelsinki » Tue Nov 10, 2015 7:44 am

sinikala wrote:I love porridge, me.... but ruispuuro is vile.

First year I was here I went on a course where traditional ruispuuro - unsweetened - made with water, not milk was served at breakfast.
It was awful. In english speaking countries, it's called gruel, the archetypal poverty food.

Image
Was it really "awful" or just maybe bland? That type of porridge definitely doesn't have a very strong taste to it, unless burned or over-salted, so a bit surprising to see someone having strong feelings about it. Personally I'm not a fan of it, but don't mind eating it. Just wondering, (to me) it seems that often in English it's either great or awful, with little room for anything in between.

Rob A.
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Rob A. » Tue Nov 10, 2015 6:49 pm

Well, yeah...it isn't really about the food as such....you can always "spice" it up, so to speak with cut-up fruit...fresh or dried, or maybe copious amounts of sugar....or as I did as a kid, throw in a tablespoon of strawberry jam.

Due to my Scottish background, porridge, the oatmeal variety, was pretty much the breakfast norm...with occasional non-Calvinistic transgressions into bacon and fried eggs and on very rare occasions, pancakes and maple syrup....

But for most in the English-speaking world...gruel or porridge is a metaphor for poverty...I suppose this can be traced back to the workhouses of early Victorian England, the writings of Charles Dickens, and the continuing popularity of Oliver Twist.

Maybe this picture gives an even better idea of the metaphor...at least from the perspective of a native English speaker...and "daring" to ask for more:

Image

And, hopefully, any Finns reading this can relax ...it wasn't intended as another "Iraqi-style attack" [...see the reference to "porridge" in the comments section at the bottom of the page...] on Finland's culinary traditions and expertise.... :)

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sinikala
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by sinikala » Wed Nov 11, 2015 3:39 am

FinnGuyHelsinki wrote:
sinikala wrote:I love porridge, me.... but ruispuuro is vile.

First year I was here I went on a course where traditional ruispuuro - unsweetened - made with water, not milk was served at breakfast.
It was awful. In english speaking countries, it's called gruel, the archetypal poverty food.

Image
Was it really "awful" or just maybe bland? That type of porridge definitely doesn't have a very strong taste to it, unless burned or over-salted, so a bit surprising to see someone having strong feelings about it. Personally I'm not a fan of it, but don't mind eating it. Just wondering, (to me) it seems that often in English it's either great or awful, with little room for anything in between.
Rye doesn't absorb water in the way oats do.
It was insipid watery gloop. It was awful in the way that a plate of watery phlegm, or luke-warm gritty wallpaper paste would be awful.

Normal porridge here is hacshually quite good, Elovena's got just the right taste though the oats tend to be somewhat smaller (chopped?) than the rolled oats that you get in the UK.
More like Readybrek than Scott's porage oats. Prepared with milk, not water, then served with milk & brown sugar on top for me.

That's breakfast sorted.
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ml14
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by ml14 » Fri Nov 13, 2015 12:46 am

The "b"- and "d"-pronunciations that the original poster heard in this word aren't surprising at all. Finnish "p" is unaspirated, unlike English "p", so it sounds much closer to what we would write as "b". And, the standard Finnish "r" is a tap or flap sound (as in Spanish/Italian/etc.), which is not far from the sound represented by "d" in English writing.
adnan wrote:That "Wah" in the end tells me that the word was told to your wife in the partitive form in some sentence. The fact that you used "Boo" tells me that, throughout the time and verbal transfer between non-Finnish-speakers, that pronunciation might be a bit far from the actual word, because the letter "B" doesn't intrinsically exist in the Finnish language, so I doubt it would be used to describe Finnish Finnish food. Combined with the oatmeal part, I'd say the word is "puuro" or "puuroa", which is porridge. Check Google Images https://www.google.fi/search?q=puuro&so ... s&tbm=isch

If that's what you're looking for, then it's very interesting how the pronunciation was twisted and changed. I mean.. the R turned into a D!

007
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by 007 » Fri Nov 13, 2015 10:18 am

If someone mistakes Finnish R for D... /i will get my coat
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Beep_Boop
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Beep_Boop » Fri Nov 13, 2015 11:20 am

ml14 wrote:And, the standard Finnish "r" is a tap or flap sound (as in Spanish/Italian/etc.), which is not far from the sound represented by "d" in English writing.
Makes absolutely no sense. None whatsoever.
Whence have you pulled that part about "r" sounding the same as "d" in English writing?!
Last edited by Beep_Boop on Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Every case is unique. You can't measure the result of your application based on arbitrary anecdotes online.

Rekkari
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Rekkari » Fri Nov 13, 2015 1:01 pm

If someone mistakes Finnish R for D... /i will get my coat
Well get your coat. Someone DID mistake the 'R' for a 'D' - the original poster. :lol:
Makes absolutely no sense. None whatsoever. Whence have you pulled that part about "r" sounding the same as "d" in English writing?!
The claim was that the sound of Finnish 'r' is not far from English 'd', not that it sounded the same!

I can totally understand how a native English speaker, unfamiliar with Finnish, could come up with boodawah for puuroa. Say them quickly while alternating between them. Makes total sense.

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Beep_Boop
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Beep_Boop » Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:33 pm

Rekkari wrote:The claim was that the sound of Finnish 'r' is not far from English 'd', not that it sounded the same!
Even so, how is not far?! I cannot think of any way a Finnish speaker would pronounce "R" in a way to make it confused with the an English speaker's "D".

This is a very very interesting claim and I'm genuinely intrigued now. Could you please link to some video/audio demonstrating your claim. If you can't find, could you please back your claim with a sound recording of yourself demonstrating it?
Every case is unique. You can't measure the result of your application based on arbitrary anecdotes online.

Rekkari
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Re: Trying to find a word

Post by Rekkari » Fri Nov 13, 2015 5:59 pm

Could you please link to some video/audio demonstrating your claim.
Off the cuff, no video/audio found but I DID find this: Rhotic consonants

In particular: In the Australian and some American dialects of English, flaps do not function as rhotics but are realizations of intervocalic apical stops (/t/ and /d/, as in rider and butter).

The placement of the tongue when forming the Finnish 'r' in, for example, puuro is not so different from how the 'd' is done in English. As I suggested before, say boodawah puuroa over and over quickly.

C'mon! Is it really THAT difficult to hear the similarity? :?

I speak with the Southern California dialect (I'm told), but I learned to talk in the Mid-Atlantic and my Mom is from Texas. Maybe my dialect is a bit lazy when it comes to trilled r's and d's. Dunno.


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