Fun with Finnish (and other languages)

enk · Post by **enk** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:06 pm

mookoo wrote:Same with the name Lauri ... put an "e" on the end and you have my mother's name.

Same with the name Matti (--> Mattie). And my first name is,
t'dum, a guy's name in Finland. My MIL was actually shocked the
first time I met her as she had thought for a couple of years
that her only kid was gay! "Ai, kas, oletkin nainen! Tervetuloa
Suomeen!" was the first comment I heard from her

For some strange reason, my immediate family's names are
all ambiguous as to their gender. Gotta remember to ask someone
if that was intentional or not.

-enk

**Sponsor:**

AnaBanana · Post by **AnaBanana** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 2:39 pm

Nowadays I'm very used to the sound of finnish and don't even notice the funny stuff...

But some "false friends" (words that are written or pronouced like words in other language, but with different meaning):
Names:
Saku - in portuguese saco - it means a bag, but also slang for balls
Keijo - in port. queijo - cheese
Mikko - in port. mico - small monkey
Asko - in port. asco - disgust

kuu - in port. cu - as**ole
porras - in port porra - slang for sperm

There are probably many more, these are what I remember for now.

PS: Loved the MEGA PUSSI that someone mentioned here! Tosi hauskaa!

EDIT: I see that the forum doesn't accept cursing!

my translation for kuu was replaced for symbols!

enk · Post by **enk** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:39 pm

One that always gets me (but isn't Finnish) is Stockmann's
Slutrusch. Maybe I need a life, but I can't help laughing
and thinking of TriDelt jokes (sorry to any TriDelts on this forum

.

-enk

karen · Post by **karen** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:38 pm

This one is great!

scoobymcdoo · Post by **scoobymcdoo** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:50 pm

I'll never forget the first time I saw vanilla flavoured Fanny in the KKKK! I still laugh! We bought some for a gay friend of ours, she just thought it was great! I have since discovered chocolate flavour as well.

Hannah

mookoo · Post by **mookoo** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 11:42 am

I suppose another word I got confused about was "ananas". When I saw it somewhere I thought it meant "bananas" since its only one letter off and Finnish doesn't have the letter "b", so I thought they probably just took it off. But then on the Koti Pizza menu I saw all these pizzas with ananas on them and I asked my husband "why do they put bananas on so many pizzas, thats so nasty!?" He looked at me with a very confused look and then asked "where do you see bananas?" and I pointed and he laughed.

enk · Post by **enk** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 11:32 pm

Tadpole'sMommy wrote:This one is great!

Oi, I've been living in Finland too long already or something,
that one took me a while

-enk

kebable · Post by **kebable** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 10:35 am

LOL LOL LMAO !!!

Jussipussi.......

yamoussoukro · Post by **yamoussoukro** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 5:16 pm

Finnish confusions for hispanohablantes.

Names:

Jukka = Yuca(a common vegetable in South-America)
Paavo = Pavo(a turkey)
Pinja = Piña(pineapple)

Asko Asco, Senja Seña etc. Most finnish names sound like something in Spanish and cause funny reactions.

Others:

Mitä kuuluu? (how are u?) sounds like, Mitad del culo. ('Centrum of ass'.)
Conjugating the Verb Pudota(to fall down) makes it sound bad, Putosi or as often in spoken finnish putos. Better to use verb tippua.

mookoo · Post by **mookoo** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:07 pm

enk wrote:Oi, I've been living in Finland too long already or something,
that one took me a while

-enk

Lol, It took me a moment as well. My husband's name is Juha but his family often call him Jussi, which my friends have switched to "Juicy" ... so you'd think I would get it right away. But my husband's new nickname also makes "Libby's Juicy Juice" sound kinda dirty

(since my name is Libby for those who don't know).

phormion · Post by **phormion** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:51 pm

mookoo, ananas is also Romanian for "pineapple"; I think it's English that's different from other languages on this one (in French I think it's also "ananas").

I don't know of any misunderstandings with Finnish names, the only thing is, I always find myself asking: "is Aki/Paivi/etc a girl or boy name?"

. It helps to know at least the sex of the person you're looking for

.

mookoo · Post by **mookoo** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:02 am

phormion wrote:mookoo, ananas is also Romanian for "pineapple"; I think it's English that's different from other languages on this one (in French I think it's also "ananas").

Thats interesting, I never knew. I guess Spanish is quite different too when pineapple is "piña". Although since I haven't spoken Spanish in so long, I wanted to make sure I had the right word. I tried the beta translator on google.com, it translates piña as "fragmentation hand grenade"

Although going backwards from English it checks out. Whew!

boO_fi · Post by **boO_fi** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:13 pm

how the ducktales theme song in finnish sounds like to those who don't know much about finnish

http://uncutohh.ytmnd.com/

rofflez

phormion · Post by **phormion** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:08 am

Lol, that ducktales song sometimes sounds so close to the misunderstood lyrics

.

One more thing I remembered yesterday, although it involves Sami more than Finnish; the Sami Museum in Inari is called SIIDA. I don't really know what it stands for, probably an acronym, but SIDA is Romanian for AIDS; in fact, I think it's the same in French. I guess some ignorant tourists could misunderstand its purpose

.

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 1:55 pm

In Estonian crap is "sitta". Now of course the international trash company "SITA" gets a lot of crap for its name

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Fun with Finnish (and other languages)