To be fair, no one in finland really calls the dice "arpakuutio", we usually call it "noppa"

As a native speaker these are so fun to watch, since you don't really think about these normally.

"Very warm. The heat situation, very warm" absolutely killed me because that is exactly what Finnish people sound like when we speak English. I feel very seen

I was just laughing to the finnish word for raccoon like couple days ago 😂 Raccoon = pesukarhu = washbear.

Finland: Is mentioned anywhere Finns: *Whomst has awakened the ancient one*

It would be fun to hear next time about the differense between compound words: hammasrauta vs rautahammas, huonekasvi vs kasvihuone, viinipullo vs pulloviini, koeajo vs ajokoe, silmälasi vs lasisilmä... It would be fun to hear your guesses about these words' meanings!

Exhaust = pakokaasu = escape gas Nightingale = satakieli = hundred tongue

Jääkaappi actually comes from way back before electricity. The way to keep food cool(er) back then was to have a pantry directly above a space in the basement called jääkellari (ice cellar). In early spring, loads of ice would be brought to the jääkellari from the nearest river or lake. This would be covered with sawdust to insulate it and would slowly melt over the course of the year. Cool air from the jääkellari would be directed to the pantry via a duct, keeping the temperatures there much lower than in the building or outside.

Well, as requested, an attempt at the explanation for the Finnish word "lohikäärme" relating to a flying and fire-breathing mythological lizard. Apologies in advance, this might prove to be quite a heavy comment to read. The first part of the word is actually a loan or an alteration/variation of an Old Swedish word 'flogh', literally translating to 'flying' (compare for example, the word 'flyga'; it has the same origin). Originally, it was 'louhi' in Finnish (meaning 'fire' and/or 'lightning'). In other words, it has nothing to do with the word for 'salmon', it has merely developed into a homophome - a word that sounds identical. The Old Swedish word for dragon is 'draki' (in current Swedish form 'drake'; the history of this goes back to Old Norse and Middle Low German, all the way to a Proto-West Germanic stem). And in the word for dragon (Old Swedish: 'floghdraki', lit. 'flying snake') it was replaced in Finnish with the word meaning 'snake' which was 'käärme'. Thus 'lohikäärme' was born.

To be fair 'sieni' translates also to sponge, not just mushroom.

A few more off the top of my head: Projector = videotykki = video cannon Space bar = välilyönti = gap hit Trimmer = partakone = beard machine Vacuum cleaner = pölynimuri = dust sucker Finnish is awesome, and I'd be really frustrated trying to learn it as a second language...

Few Finns think this as two words, but: ”Maailma” = maa + ilma = ground + air, meaning the world or globe

Awesome job translating the words and deducting the meaning! Especially the backwards deduction with hammasraudat was very impressive and showed that you have developed your Finnish skills very far already. It was awesome that you showed your thinking process, it made me appreciate the language learning even more. It would be really fun to watch another video like this.

Also a good one is: Lentävä lautanen ="Flying plate" = ufo

Kuukausi means "moon season" and it's literal because different phases of moon last a month (hence the months end in "-kuu")

In Norwegian, the word for buttercup (smørblomst) does directly translate into butter flower in English. Growing up bilingual Norwegian and Finnish, for the longest time I thought voikukka also meant buttercup in Finnish; I was very confused when I eventually found out. Norwegian also has a lot of these literal words, a particular favourite of mine being the word for bat - flaggermus - which literally translates into "flappy mouse".

My favorite Finnish compounds would definitely be these two: Flatulence = Ilmavaiva = Air nuisance Perineum = Väliliha = Middle meat And I love the fact that "ilmavaiva" is just one letter away from "ilmalaiva", an airship (also a literal translation) or a blimp. I also recently realized that the Finnish word for butler, hovimestari, would translate as "court master", which brings to mind something completely different. Also the Finnish word for month is kuukausi, or moon period. In the actual month names you omit the "kausi".

7:54 Fun fact: As a finn when someone runs through the months, I never hear them pronounce the "kuu". It's always tammi, helmi, maalis... etc. You don't mention it even on the last one, even if you run through all 12 of them.

One of the things I'm constantly impressed by when it comes to your Finnish skills is that you've gotten so good at telling words apart. Like, for example, if you see the word "tammikuu", you know "tammi" is one word and "kuu" is another. So it's not something silly like "Tam Mikuu". I know our long words can be a bit challenging, but looks like you've learned to handle them fairly easily. I love these videos, very interesting and entertaining to watch!

The months in Finnish are indeed poetic, I love how we have completely different words for them than most other European languages. Helmikuu, kesäkuu, heinäkuu, elokuu, syyskuu, lokakuu, joulukuu... Always wondered where 'helmikuu' got it's name, does it come from the snow glistering like pearls or something? Weird, hahah, but that's my favourite Finnish name for a month.

Kuu in a month like tammikuu stands for kuukausi, which would literally translate to something like season of The moon(aka The amount of The Time it takes for The moon to travel around The earth)

My fav is pissapoika = pee boy (windscreen washer) 🤣

Don't worry Dave, I count the months in some cases too both in Finnish and English.

I knew Finnish as a child. My parents were from Finland. Now the language is rusty. But you inspire me to re-learn. I enjoyed this exercise in the language. Love your videos!

I went mushroom picking in finland but didn't sieni

Let us not forget the old Finnish word for lion, which was 'jalopeura' = noble deer

About that tammikuu thing where you thought "kuu" means month. Month is actually kuukausi, and the "-kuu" end in every month's name is kinda just short for kuukausi. As for kuukausi, it literally means "moon season/moon age", because it's how long the moon takes to go around.

For the record: No-one ever says "arpakuutio", in practice it's just noppa :)

-Zoo = Eläintarha = Animal Garden -Volume = Äänenvoimakkuus = Power of sound -Assassin = Salamurhaaja = Secret murderer

Not sure if somebody has mentioned this yet, but 'tammi' is also very old word that means core/middle So therefore tammikuu/core moon is middle of winter

I love things like this so much. Finnish is my mother tongue so the quirkyness of these may fly under the radar for me but watching this video made me appreciate Finnish. Now I feel eager to start learning some new language myself.

I still do that thing with months but from Finnish to English. Every time.

Kuukausi, or "moon season" is the word for a month in Finnish, which is where the "-kuu" at the end of every month comes from.

I think that "kilpi" was translated to plate, because "rekisterikilpi" is a finnish word for "license plate". Also your finnish accent on 6:36 was on point! 😂 And moon and month are the same word in finnish

Lohikäärme can also come from finnish mythology. It is possible that lohi is shortend from Louhi who was antagonist in Kalevala. So dragon would be Louhi's snake.

It's interesting that some of them work in German, too. "Voileipä" is "Butterbrot" (butter bread). It usually means one slice of bread with butter and cheese, cold cuts or jam on top, not a sandwich in the stricter sense. We also have the "shield toad" (Schildkröte), the fridge in German is a "cooling cupboard/closet" (Kühlschrank) but some people call it "Eisschrank" (ice closet), too. A bra is a "Büstenhalter" (bosom holder) in German. A buttercup in German is a "Butterblume" (butter flower). We also have keskiviikko. It's "Mittwoch" (mid week). "Erdball" (maapallo) also exists as an alternative expression for "globe", almost exclusively used in the context of "around the globe" ("rund um den Erdball). Funny. German and Finnish minds seem to think alike sometimes. :)

Even I had forgotten that 'arpakuutio' is 'dice' because I have always used 'noppa' 😂 and I'm Finnish, born and raised.

The word for ”bra” is funny in Swedish, too! Bh = brösthållare = breastholder 😂

There's an old novel called Rautatie, where a couple living in rural eastern Finland hears that they are building a railroad in the neighboring town. Not knowing what exactly it is, they take it literally and assume that they are building a road made of sheet metal. It's been made into a movie in the early 70's and it's available on Yle Areena. If you ever want to see an old Finnish movie, I can recommend it. But be warned, it's not your average action flick. It's about the "hickyness" of the Finns in the late 19th century.

4:00 it’s interesting to hear that sandwiches don’t normally have two pieces of bread in Finland. I have a polish friend who does the same thing, they only use one piece of bread, but as an American who has only once traveled outside the us and never out of the continent, it’s kind of a cool thing. Thinking about it, two slices of bread is just some unnecessary bread

Months are literally moon phases. Most literal are kesäkuu and joulukuu. Marraskuu comes from old word for death: marras. Lokakuu means filth-moon. Tammi is reference to oak tree. It is month in the dead winter as hard and immovable as a sturdy oak. I am sure there's some site that explains all of them. Worth to give a look, each one is interesting. What's more, there are MANY references to old pagan days and to "viking era". Here are literal translations of few that comes to mind: Ukkonen or ukonilma = weather of Ukko (god) (means; thunder storm) Torstai = Thor's day (means; thursday) Joulu = Yule (means; christmas) Joulupukki = Yule goat (means; santa claus)

Konna also means frog tribe (Bufonidae) in Finnish, and that's why turtle is like a kind of frog with a shield. In the Finnish language, tammi has meant pole, axis, middle tree. January is the center of winter. This month split the difficult winter season in two.

I went to a quiz night and one of the funniest rounds was when Finnish place names were translated to English. Many people had never realized how familiar places like Joensuu and Linnanmäki sounds so unfamiliar in direct English translation (River Mouth and Castle Hill).

I think the "kilpikonna" is like Estonian "kilpkonn" which literally means 'shield frog'. 🐸 Overall, pretty amazing how similar the two languages are in some cases. Even the sandwich-making habits are the same 🤣

This was actually fun for a speaker of Danish, which is also an agglutinative language, as many of the words are the same in Danish, literally translated (and some are not). Ice cupboard (fridge) is actually cooling cupboard in Danish, but before they were electrified, we picked up a big block of ice at the local "ice dairy" and put it in the ice cupboard... I recall my old colleague saying "Finnish is easy: a book is a kirkja and a song is laulu, so a songbook is laulukirja. And as christmas is joulo, a Christmas songbook is joulolaulukirja..."

Guess this one, its a classic ... Korvalappustereo.

Tää oli hyvä video! Lisää näitä, kiitos!

3:53 I think that tradition originally came from Sweden, where there is its own word for a big sandwich buffet, "smörgåsbord", which is also used in English to emphasize a big variation of things, like a feast or a banquet. And in Sweden sandwiches are often seen as a form of art, where all the toppings are in a perfect harmony with each other, and closing it with another bread slice would ruin the sensation.🥪

Super fun and you are doing extremely well! I'd love more of these :)

Origins of lohikäärme: lohi comes from the old-swedish flogh = flying. When salmon swims upriver to their spawning grounds they jump "fly" up the rapids.

So I just watched the more recent one and then this one and I think you did amazing! I was quite impressed multiple times, especially how you figured out the lemma of the word rauta. So good job, Dave!

8:18 Finns months Tammikuu - Oak moon Helmikuu - pearl moon Maaliskuu Huhtikuu Toukokuu - seedtime moon Kesäkuu - summer moon Heinäkuu - grass moon Elokuu Syyskuu - autumn moon Lokakuu - mud moon Marraskuu Joulukuu - Christmas moon

Some new suggestions: - poikamiestyttö - asianajaja - avoliitto - puutarha - pystykorva - palokärki - päiväkoti

English can also be very surprising. Who could ever guess that a 'butterfly' is not a 'fly of the butter' (it translates 'farfalla' in Italian, nothing to do with butter). Not to mention 'Dragonfly': a charming insect we call with a charming name (Libellula). No dragons involved.

Actually the word "Lämpötila" is literally: heat-state and not situation, that would be tilanne Also that konna for villain is also wrong. It means crook, and also it is technically wrong in this instance, since in this situation it clearly means the toad and not the crook (lit. konna)

Nice deduction skills Dave! Good to see your vocabulary has increased :) Was a fun video!

One of my favourites is "Kuusi palaa" It means: - The spruce is on fire - The number six is on fire - Your moon is on fire - Six of them are on fire - The spruce returns - The number six returns - Six of them return - Your moon returns - Six pieces

Brilliant! Very fun episode.

Vau, osaat jo tosi hyvin suomea! Raudat -> rauta 👍👍 Good job Cave Dad 🤩

The original form "louhikäärme" was still there in the 50's-70's (at least in Donald Duck comics). A "plate villain" is just plain ridiculous :) The correct literal translation in that case would indeed be a "shield toad".

Omg yes, upload more videos like this! I love it

Congratz on your Finnish! You have made a huge progress through out these videos. Very entertaining to be a part of your jorney. This video was one of funniest ones! Have to say, as a Finn, most of the time I am completely oblivious about these oddities of Finnish language, yhdyssanat just comes so natural. But many years ago I had this summer job as a whole salesman. My customers often were professional handymen and sorts, rarely I had to sell them anything, they would only ask whether we had this and that. That was the moment when I realized how you can really twist up the Finnish language when it comes to "work lingo". "Työukot" would come to me and ask "missä on pöllön silmät?". Where are the owl eyes? I was flabbergasted... Apparently those were the aluminium things you put in hole and strike with a hammer to seal it up / attach something.

Thanks! Haven't even noticed, that we are so literal. Maybe that's why its so easy to create a lot of word jokes in finnish. I personally like to combine two or more of those double words. Like kirjolohi (rainbowtrout) and lohikäärme (dragon) = Kirjolohikäärme, then just try to imagine it: could it be like a colourful dragon, or snake looking like a rainbow trout? Another one: sähkövirta (electric current) + virtahepo (hippo) = sähkövirtahepo. Literally electric current horse, or just electric hippo.

Dave sinä luet ja ymmärrät suomea hyvin! Thank you for working so hard to learn and respecting Finnish language and people

I'm quite sure the word 'lohikäärme' is corrupted version of the original: Louhikäärme (Louhi's snake = 'Louhen käärme'). Louhi is powerful, northern character in Finnish mytology and her pet called 'Ikiturso' (or 'Iku-turso') reminds dragon a lot, though it lives in water like monster of Loch Ness.

hyvin tehty, dave! you did such an amazing job! finnish is such a hard language to learn and you are doing a decent job! you can be proud of yourself!! also it's funny to me as a german how some words are the same in german. we also do very literal words. kilpikonna also is shield-toad in german (Schildkröte) and we could also say earth-ball (Erdball, just sounds very poetic then). lentokone is also close as flying-stuff in german (Flugzeug). i lived in finland for a year and in my finnish lessons we discovered a lot of similarities :) my favorite one was the dandelion, which we also call butter-flower (Butterblume), or lion-tooth (Löwenzahn), or blowing-flower (Pusteblume) because you can blow the seeds away :)

Pesusieni (Spongia officinalis) is actually a real mushroom used to same thing as sponge, which is a synthetic version of the mushroom. Originally these mushrooms were harvested from the mediterranian sea but naturally not in such volumes as commercial use needs.

English has many frases too that sounds funny when translated literally, like Shooting star, Safe and Sound, Over here etc. 😅 Probably the hardest and puzzling word to really understand was Colonel. It really didn't make any sense how to spell it.

Thought you would take on 'kuukausi' after 'tammikuu'😄 good job progressing with your finnish so well👍

Kilpikonna could be "shield thug" as well. "Arpakuutio" may be a little old fashioned word and "noppa " more popular today, but you can hear "arpakuutio" occasionally. (the Nut island's Peace divides Finnish dialects into eastern and western type)

The refrigerator one makes total sense from an English perspective. Before electricity, refrigerators were cooled with blocks of ice and were often called “iceboxes “. My grandmother, born in 1912, always called the refrigerator an icebox-either because that’s what they used when she was young or what she heard from her mother.

Hienoa Dave, hyvin menee! olis kiva kokeilla sun kans puhua suomeksi :)

lohikäärme: partial calque of Old Swedish floghdraki (“flying snake”); lohi +‎ käärme. Originally louhikäärme, the initial component became lohi (“salmon”) by folk etymology.

I was in your situation some 33 years ago. My funniest challenge was kunnossapito. >break it down: kunnos => well, nt changes to nn, and that s... let's forget about it for now sapito => could not be found. Cost me an hour of working time ;) >The real break down: kunto => kunno- meaning: form, condition, state ssa => Innessiivi, means roughly "in" pito => grip, keeping, maintaining (coming from the verb pitää "to keep") So: Kunno ssa pito = in-condition keeping = maintenance, upkeep.

maailma is also quite funny. :) maa = land/country/ground, ilma = air, maailma = world

In Estonish computer is called arvuutin 🤭 In Finnish pulma is trouble and in Estonish it’s marriage 🤭

The Dragon one, is from Norse, it's from the time when Finnish wasn't as well documented either... but supposedly it's a translation of Flying Dragon. Pesusieni is a direct translation of Swedish Tvättsvamp. Voileipä... yet another steal from Swedish, well not anymore, but in the olden days when we didn't have dumb words for stuff, it used to be buttered bread as well. Dandelions oh yes, the one where they use a Swedish name for a bunch of flowers, but use it for the wrong flower... Well it's better than the Swedish name which is wormrose, but since we use it for alcohol, it's fine. Kilpikonna now that's a direct translation, of Sköldpadda, that's because konna in finnish originally meant frog... heat situation, yeah I guess we were lazy in Sweden and just copied thermometer, which is heat measure, but yeah, it should've been värmestånd before that loanword, which means heat situation... guess it's yet another loanword, not necessarily though. Okay the Rauta in Hammasraudat comes from Norse, I knew it, as Raudi is Hematite, or Iron ore, literally meaning redish... Oh the Maapallo was interesting, because in Swedish the word is Jordglob, earth globe... I learned a lot of fun stuff, I'll probably forget, but I think I've added some things with my comment... It's interesting how similar Finnish is to the Nordic languages due to how many loanwords it has, for example Ruhtinas(prince) which comes from an old norse word Druhtinaz meaning lord/king... Well being next door neighbors and having basically the same culture, it's not really that weird, I mean, Finns are surrounded by the Nords and the Rus both of which have the same culture, so it's not weird that Finland became what it became, living under constant threat of 2 superpowers... Sweden used to be the mightiest nation on Earth... requiring both the Dutch and the Russians to smack em down.

Breast vest killed me

Thank you for the video, it made my day, also when i was in school my teachers would say ( A for efford) 10 points and a parrot's mark on top. You did well

FunFact: The first part "lohi-" from the Finnish word "lohikäärme" doesn't mean salmon but its original spelling has been "louhikäärme". And its first part "louhi-" is either a loanword from the Scandinavian languages where it is "floghdraki" (flying serpent) or derived from the word "louhikko" which means a large pile of stones. If it is the latter then a direct translation would be "a snake of stone pile."

That was a fun one to watch. There's a lot of of great and very literal compound words in finnish for sure!

2:41 To be honest sometimes I also make this mistake despite being a Finn, and I have never heard anyone use Arpakuutio, instead we use Noppa.

Mustekala = ink fish (octopus) Avoauto = open car (convertible) Sukkahousut = sock pants (pantyhose) Sateenkaari = rain arch (rainbow) Maantie = road of the land/earth (road) Valtatie = power road (highway) Revontulet = fires of a fox (northern lights/aurora borealis) repo=fox

I am from finland so it is really fun to watch theese😅 good job 👏🏻

tämä on ihan parasta katsottavaa sinä lausut tosi hyvin nämä suomalaiset sanat!

Such fun watching at this! Why do you eat sand and witches 😮

You are nowadays better with recognising different parts of those compund words (I mean yhdyssanat, i hope used the right word 😂)!

The word lohikäärme (or louhikäärme) is probably derived from old Swedish word 'floghdraki ’ - flying dragon. Finns changed the latter part 'draki' with snake.

"Sarjakuva" is good

As a fellow learner of Finnish: You might want to use wiktionary instead of google translate to look up the meaning of words. It lists different meanings and sometimes gives you some information about the etymology of the word and what other words it might derive from. It's especially helpful with conjugation of verbs and declension of nouns and adjectives. Just in case you didn't know about it

I really enjoy these dives into the vast ocean of weirdness that is the Finnish language. It gives you a cool perspective to something that's so close to home. For example tammikuu is such an ordinary day-to-day word, but when you translate it literally to oak moon, it becomes really beautiful and poetic. The others would be pearl moon, earth moon, swidden moon, planting moon, summer moon, hey moon, crop moon, autumn moon, dirt moon, dead moon and yule/"christmas"moon. My favorites of these would be oak moon, pearl moon and dead moon... 🕯️📖

lappuliisa - small piece of paper Liisa (="Lisa") - traffic warden baarimikko - bar Mikko (="Michael") - bartender rattijuoppo - steering wheel drunk - drunken driver

January is the first month of the year on the Gregorian and Julian calendars. In the northern hemisphere, it is on average the coldest month of the year, midwinter, which is also suggested to be the name of the month, because in Häme dialects, for example, the word oak also means heart or core (“heart tree”) and pole or axis. January has also been called the heart of the month. The Great Oak, which appears in Kalevala poetry, is a giant tree covering the sky, the world tree

Dave: "Tammi...helmi... yeah...does anyone else..." Me:-YES I HAVE TO DO THAT EVE... Dave continuing:"...when learning new languages..." -Oh... umm... sure... I'm not having problems with months in my native language either...pfft... who said that?

So interesting to hear how you process the Finnish months in your brain, through numbers. I process the months in English in a similar way. I always have to first associate August with the number 8 to "remember" which month it is (and to not confuse it with October...). What was also quite surprising was that after I had lived in England for several years, I started to mix up maaliskuu and marraskuu in my head - and it's my mother tongue we're talking about! LOL I also quite often say freezer when I actually mean fridge in English. I think my brain is still processing the 'jää' part in 'jääkaappi' and the mouth has meanwhile translated the word into freezer before it all clicks together!

I love this literal approach of Finnish language! It was also satisfying to watch you figure out hammasraudat! Do you use Reddit? This could be posted to subreddits like r/suomi and r/finland. I don't know language subs, first to come in mind are r/etymology and r/doesnottranslate

Your pronouncing stuff pretty well, keep at it haha! You should do one video about "spoonerisms" also called "sanamuunnos" in finnish !

Very Interesting video! You speak Finnish so well that It’s easy to think that you’d know all these words. Have you done a video about sananmuunnokset? Spoonerism. A majority of those are probably not suitable for KZfaq, but there are some family friendly ones too.

This is one word only, but if you were to translate "soup" (keitto) literally, it would be "a boil"

Ah! Your rally English made me crack up! Berfect imitation. 😂