toisella puolen jotakin

[linforcer]

I have a feeling I'm just going to accept this as "a way of doing this" but I thought I'd ask anyway...
toisella puolen jotakin seems like a very un-finnish way of saying "on the other side of something" (or "over" as my dictionary would claim)

Are there many things that steer away from what I would do (in this case "jonkin toisella puolella") in the same way?

Is there any difference in meaning or tone?

[jahasjahas]

I think I'd consider all of the options equally valid.

on the other side of the river:

joen toisella puolella
joen toisella puolen
toisella puolella jokea
toisella puolen jokea

"puolen" sounds more poetic, maybe. The rest depends on the order you want to present the information in.

[linforcer]

Yeah, the order wasn't what bothered me, as by now I've learned not to pay too much attention to word order. I guess it's just that "puolen jokea" makes my head go : "the river of the side, what?!"

[AldenG]

That's one of the hardest things, isn't it, knowing which pieces belong to which, and where a functional unit ends?

If that were more obvious, the rest would often be so much easier to figure out.

Taking a related example from Wikipedia, not being able to see how the pieces fit together can completely change the apparent meaning:

Miehen mukaan hänen avioliittonsa on kaikin puolin toimiva.

I can think of a number of almost-funny incorrect translations a beginner could make.

[linforcer]

In that sentence, what I found hardest was recognising the instructive (assuming i got it right), since I don't see that too often.