Finnish sayings etc what mean somethin different.

[sammy]

So it would seem "Speedy Gonzales" means something different to Finns than to North Americans...

Dunno... could be a question of what age you are. Those "Merry Melodies" cartoons (e.g. Wiley Coyote & the Roadrunners... that was "maantiekiitäjät" incidentally alongside with Pink Panther, Tom & Jerry and what have you) were often shown ex tempore as "surprise fillers" back in the days when the tv channels were not so crammed with stuff and programming was more 'relaxed'. Maybe the younger generation is not even familiar with those Spede movies (?) - be as it may I think that Speedy cartoon character was on the telly here back then, too (most certainly the Finn-western star's name was taken from the cartoon)...

Anyway I just bought the Hirttämättömät dvd the other day - perhaps it's not completely forgotten yet since it's available

[kalmisto]

>> Fortunately, these two comedies are more or less the only "westerns" ever made in Finland They're rather cr*ppy really, but have a certain 70's charm nevertheless. <<

You forgot "Villi Pohjola" ( The Wild North ) from 1955 :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049921/

And "Villin Pohjolan kulta" ( Gold from the Wild North ) from 1963 :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133265

Those two films are "westerns" too and if I remember correctly they are not as crappy as the movies you mentioned.

[kalmisto]

I forgot to mention a third movie "Villin Pohjolan salattu laakso" ( The secret valley of The Wild North ) :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057662

Wikipedia on "Villi Pohjola" :
http://valab.notlong.com

[sammy]

>> Fortunately, these two comedies are more or less the only "westerns" ever made in Finland They're rather cr*ppy really, but have a certain 70's charm nevertheless. <<

You forgot "Villi Pohjola" ( The Wild North ) from 1955 :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049921/

And "Villin Pohjolan kulta" ( Gold from the Wild North ) from 1963 :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133265

Those two films are "westerns" too and if I remember correctly they are not as crappy as the movies you mentioned.

Ah yes, I've seen them ages ago - but I seem to remember they were more "gold-digger" style westerns than of the gunslinger variety... could be wrong, it's so long ago... but the name Tundra-Tauno is absolutely topping! With a small amount of artistic liberty, that would be Permafrost Pete in English.

[Rob A.]

>> Fortunately, these two comedies are more or less the only "westerns" ever made in Finland They're rather cr*ppy really, but have a certain 70's charm nevertheless. <<

You forgot "Villi Pohjola" ( The Wild North ) from 1955 :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049921/

And "Villin Pohjolan kulta" ( Gold from the Wild North ) from 1963 :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133265

Those two films are "westerns" too and if I remember correctly they are not as crappy as the movies you mentioned.

Ah yes, I've seen them ages ago - but I seem to remember they were more "gold-digger" style westerns than of the gunslinger variety... could be wrong, it's so long ago... but the name Tundra-Tauno is absolutely topping! With a small amount of artistic liberty, that would be Permafrost Pete in English.

How about "North to Alaska"??..

....Big Sam left Seattle in the year of '92, With George Pratt, his partner, and brother, Billy, too. They crossed the Yukon River and found the bonanza gold...... first part of the lyrics to the Johnny Horton hit song 'way back when...

...hey, it starred John Wayne....

[Rob A.]

Jukka, can I ask you to analyse something for me.

nukuin yhden tunnin I slept one hour
Both yksi and tunti are in the accusative case.

but

nukuin kaksi tuntia
nukuin kolme tuntia etc
The number is in the nominative case and the hour is in the partitive case. Why the three different cases? The only explanation I can come up with is "that's just the way it is".

The wikibook Suomen kieli ulkomaalaisille explains it away with a concept known as “unmarked accusative”. According to this grammatical interpretation, the numerals kaksi and kolme actually are in the accusative case in those sample sentences, despite appearing identical to the nominative case.

What makes things a bit more complicated is that the latest major new Finnish grammar, Iso Suomen kielioppi – which probably should be taken to represent the present-day scholarly view on the subject – obviously disregards the former (traditional) ideas about the accusative case in Finnish. Having never read the book myself, I’m not sure how the authors explain the above-mentioned aspect of Finnish numerals and their usage.

Of course, when you dig deep enough, pretty much everything about languages boils down to “that’s just the way it is”...

Thanks for the links, Jukka. The wikibook explains it nicely, but yes, Iso suomen kielioppi puts another twist to it

By the way, the name of one of the authors of Iso suomen kielioppi, Auli Hakulinen, sounded very familiar to me. According to her CV, she "engaged in applying linguistics to teaching of mother tongue for comprehensive school 1971-79". I attended Joensuu Normal School in the 70's and we were guinea pigs for various experimental text books. We probably studied her Toisin sanoen series and that's how I remember her name

Just to follow up on this...I found this link which might be of use to a few in here:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=YLJb6-O ... t#PPA18,M1

Now, this is not specific to Finnish but it discusses numbers in general, "Number Words and Number Symbols". The section highlighted discusses "numbers as adjectives"....

Well, I guess the short answer is that numbers, that is; number words, are special kinds of adjectives...in most languages they don't fully conform to the normal rules of grammar for the particular language.... those that know Latin know that only some of the number words actually decline... It's too early for me to try to interpret this with regard to Finnish, but I guess it's enough for now to know that it may be different than one expects...

Be aware, though, that it's one of those google books that only lets you look at a certain number of pages without buying it... ...but it's cheap... only $CA12.87 over here...

[kalmisto]

>> Ah yes, I've seen them ages ago - but I seem to remember they were more "gold-digger" style westerns than of the gunslinger variety... could be wrong, it's so long ago... but the name Tundra-Tauno is absolutely topping! With a small amount of artistic liberty, that would be Permafrost Pete in English.[/quote] <<

There is a synopsis to "Villi Pohjola" on this page : http://www.nffc.fi/index.php?p=tuotanto&id=96

[onkko]

Back to topic, i red old papers and noticed/remembered how we said names and remembered how foreigners whine about "where youre from" question and i remembered this.
Ei ole mistään kotoisin = istn from anywhere = something/someone is worthless/useless/inappropriate
Examples. Childrens running and yelling when shouldnt = That kind of behaviour isnt from anywhere.
Useless tool, This tool isnt from anywhere.
Bum, he is not from anywhere.

You really want to be from somewhere
I heard this saying mostly from older people but i do use it and so are some of my friends.

Remember "where are you from" is easy way to start conversation if you cant "pinpoint" other anywhere, its not insult or anything like that just normal curiousity and its asked from finnish speaking different dialect too

In old papers there is like "Kalle SonOfPertti from farm Perttilä from town of whatever" etc

[Rob A.]

Back to topic, i red old papers and noticed/remembered how we said names and remembered how foreigners whine about "where youre from" question and i remembered this.
Ei ole mistään kotoisin = istn from anywhere = something/someone is worthless/useless/inappropriate
Examples. Childrens running and yelling when shouldnt = That kind of behaviour isnt from anywhere.
Useless tool, This tool isnt from anywhere.
Bum, he is not from anywhere.

Well, I guess the 'classic" translation in English would be "good-for-nothing"...As in:
"You lazy, good-for-nothing drunk..."....

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/good-for-nothing

You really want to be from somewhere
I heard this saying mostly from older people but i do use it and so are some of my friends.

Remember "where are you from" is easy way to start conversation if you cant "pinpoint" other anywhere, its not insult or anything like that just normal curiousity and its asked from finnish speaking different dialect too

In old papers there is like "Kalle SonOfPertti from farm Perttilä from town of whatever" etc

Apparently ...from what I tell from some of the posts...it isn't all that easy a way to start a conversation with some of the foreigners.......Though I guess it's still a common way here... A few eeks ago, I asked a young guy with a strong, "British-style" accent if he was from Australia...no, he wasn't...Zimbabwe...

[Pursuivant]

I'm in the pub getting a repair set... just heard ober the billiards a comment:
sinäkin tollanen perseeseenjyystäjä

[Pursuivant]

this is for Rob A...
Finnish "politeness"..
minä just kuvittelin että sä lähdet tästä(pöydästä) nyt vittuun

...in other words my presece was unwanted and I need to give the "space" for the alpha.. but it was *polite* (and I wasn't contesting his turf)

[onkko]

I found that "Seinähullu" (lit. wall insane, meaning totally insane) has real origin.
Ages ago really insane people were chained in wall to keep them under control, and you really had to be really insane to get that treatment

http://igs.kirjastot.fi/en-GB/iGS/ Ask anything is where i found that and you can really ask anything in there.

[Sakari]

nussia pilkkua, pilkunnussinta = to @#$% the dot (,), @#$% the dot
when someone is being over exact about something

"mutta se on 5,4256 euroa"
-"älä nussi pilkkua"

"but it's 5,4256 euros"
-"Don't @#$% the dot"

I have heard that in english the same expression is "dot the i's and cross the t's"




Älä opeta isääs nussimaan = don't teach your father how to @#$%
This is pretty straightforward, when someone is trying to tell you something you already know

"Ensiksi sinun täytyy käynnistää kone"
-"Älä opeta isääs nussimaan!"

"At first you must turn the computer on"
-"Don't teach your father how to @#$%!"


Se pysyi siinä kuin tikku paskassa = it stayed there like a stick in !"#¤%


Lentää kuin leppäkeihäs = fly like an alder javelin
Used when someone *flies* really easily

Markku lensi kuin leppäkeihäs kun portsari heitti hänet ulos
-"Markku flew like an alder javelin when the bouncer threw him out"


varpusparvi = a flock of sparrows
-> diarrhea

Paskoin juuri varpusparven
-"I just shat a flock of sparrows"



edit: ok, there's an automated censoring thing in the forum. But because this is an educational post it shouldn't matter that there are some cursewords here as the sayings are widely known in Finland. So the censored word are the f-word and the s-word of poop.

[onkko]

I listened some music and found one what isnt probably clear for foreigners.
Saunan takana on tilaa. There is space behind sauna.
Well it sounds neutral and quite odd but behind of sauna is place where you execute people so that means whoever said that wants someone doing whatever he commented to be executed.
xxx seems to be pedophile, well there is space behind sauna.

[Pursuivant]

nussia pilkkua, pilkunnussinta = to @#$% the dot (,), @#$% the dot
when someone is being over exact about something

actually in Dutch language there is the same expression - someone is being a kommaneuker