Finnish: More difficult than you'd think

Hi all! After a short hiatus to focus on grant-writing, I am back. Since I last wrote, we've both had a number of Finnish lessons. I am enrolled in a weekly course that meets on campus, quite close to my lab and Brent is in a more intensive course that meets twice weekly at a community college around the corner from our apartment. Though we are not likely to encounter Finnish anywhere else in the world and everyone we have interacted with speaks English (children are required to learn both English and Swedish in school), the classes were very cheap, and the street signs are all in Finnish (and Swedish, but more on that later). Grocery shopping was (and sometimes still is) a challenge. When nutmeg = muskottipähkinä, you certainly have to go with a list translated by Google. Though sometimes helpful, Google translate definitely has limits. 

The language is related to practically nothing. I say practically because it is in the small family of Finno-Urgic languages that came from over the Ural mountains and through present-day northern Finland where the Sami people live. Included in the family are also Hungarian and Estonian. Finnish was a spoken language until sometime in the 16th century when a bishop (Agricola) wanted to translate the bible into Finnish. In order to do this, the language first needed to be codified. Thus the language was preserved.

We have both taken language courses in the past: I learned Spanish and Brent took French. Our experiences were similar in that we began by learning the alphabet, sounds the letters make, a few basic greetings, and a lot of vocabulary. Here we didn't encounter the alphabet or have formal instruction on the sounds until much later. Brent can conjugate any verb or noun you like and I can carry on a greeting conversation repeatedly. We compared notes on greeting exchanges, and we came up with some differences. It turns out that there is a formal, written form of Finnish and an informal, spoken form of Finnish. Brent is learning the formal while I'm learning the informal. These aren't just contractions as in English, most words have a shortened form. Some words are easy: I'm sorry/excuse me = anteeksi (AHN-texi, formal) or anteeks (AHN-tex, informal). However, when they begin shortening conjugated words, it becomes more of a challenge for us non-native speakers to follow. For example, nouns can have up to 15 different conjugations (i.e. your house, my house, of the house, to the house, at the house, etc. you get the idea), and start shortening all of those, and we have a lot of words to learn.

Another thing to be worried about is pronunciation. Just a change of one vowel, or addition of one can lead to very different meanings. For example:
Minä näin sinut = I saw you
Minä nain sinut = I will marry you
You can see why I was concerned about learning the sounds that the letters make. Especially since Finns take promises seriously. Another potentially embarrassing exchange occurred with my boss. After a few days of listening to my coworkers greet each other and the boss in the mornings with a cheerful, 'Huomenta!', I decided to try it out, too. My boss came in to the lab and I said what I'd heard, 'Huomenta', and she said ,'What?'. Oh no, what did I just say?! 'Umm, good morning!' She went on to explain that her hearing isn't the best anymore, and she wasn't expecting to hear Finnish out of me. Whew. And as best as I can tell, I didn't say anything that sounded offensive. 

So, though we express some displeasure at Agricola from time to time, the little bit of Finnish that we have learned thus far has been beneficial. It may be some time before we can carry on useful exchanges in Finnish, but learning a new language is always fun and is a critical part of integrating into a culture.

Faux-Pax and Design

Another week has gone by and we are still learning things about Finland. Brent started Finnish language courses at the nearby community college. It is rather unconventional compared to language classes that we've taken -- they skipped learning the alphabet and any sounds and jumped right into verb conjugation. I will start a class this week that is held on my campus. Hopefully between the two of us, we will soon be able to read signs and understand any announcements made on the trams about a mid-route change in lines... However, not knowing Finnish hasn't inhibited our managing life in Helsinki.

This weekend, we were able to put our hard-learned culture skills to work. Where did we learn them? From several books and TV shows, compiled by expert travelers. Anyway, one of my coworkers moved to an apartment that is around the corner from where we live, and she invited us to her house-warming party. We read that it is rude to be fashionably late in Finland, and so we showed up at 6 on the dot for her party. As you may have guessed, we were the first ones to arrive, by at least 30 minutes! It was as embarrassing in person as it is for you to read about it. We kept her company while she finished making appetizers and discussed a few other inaccuracies in our culture knowledge. Fortunately, she and my other coworkers that arrived at much more socially-acceptable times, thought our faux-pas to be cute. I wonder how much longer any gaffs will be thusly considered???

We spent our sunny Sunday acting as tourists again, and covered quite a bit of ground. Our first stop was the library in our new neighborhood. It is a beautiful building, built in 1912, and best of all, it is open on Sundays. Only about half of the businesses are open on Sundays, so it is exciting to find your cafe/restaurant/clothing store of choice open on a Sunday. Legislation was passed sometime within the last 10 years, allowing shops to be open on Sundays, but only if they desire. Here, all people are entitled to a weekend, and it is taken very seriously.

It's been Helsinki Design Week here for the last 10 days or so, and we thought we'd go see part of it on its last day. On our way, we came across a street performer who played bottles. He obviously had quite a lot of experience and had this whole set up. He also had a stereo with a rhythm line to accompany him. This picture may not accurately show it, but he had attracted a rather large audience.

Onto Design Week. In honor of being selected the World Design Capital of 2012, Helsinki put together a city-wide festival of design-themed exhibits and events.

Unfortunately, we only made it to one event of everything that was going on (http://www.helsinkidesignweek.com/), and that was the Finnish Design Shop, held in the Old Customs Warehouse next to the South Harbor where many of the cruise ships stop and the kauppatori (market) is held.

Inside there were aisles and aisles and rooms filled with things made by Finnish designers, both famous and obscure and up-and-coming. There were things there made for every room of your home, including the closets. 

Afterward, we wandered around the small island of Katajanokka to look at the old remnants of the shipping industry. Where these things occur now, I am not sure. However, all of the old brick buildings were left behind and they have fortunately been repurposed rather than destroyed. We then took the tram to the peninsula where the largest park in Helsinki is located: Kaivopuisto. This neighborhood also holds the American Embassy. We thought we'd return some other time to locate the embassy and walked through the large park instead. As I wrote a few posts ago, the Finns are hyperaware that winter is approaching, and I hear about it at work daily. The park was mostly green, but contained a few sure signs that summer has ended. We look forward to the next few weeks of beautiful color that await us before the snow sets in.

Kallio stars

We've lived in our new neighborhood, Kallio, for a week now: the word translates into The Rock. The location is nice with numerous mass transit stops within 2 minutes of our door, and a handful of grocery stores within 3 minutes in any direction you can go. And there is a soccer field across the street, which is flooded in the winter and thus converted into a skating rink. Maybe this will happen next week. ;)

With the pending cold that all of the Finns I know are talking of, we decided to take advantage of the sunny, cool weekend. On Saturday we want exploring the surrounding neighborhoods, admiring the design of some of the buildings. Surprisingly, we ran into a tiny restaurant which serves Danish food. Of course we had to stop in:

It was really the size of a closet, and a woman was the only employee: waitress, chef, and cashier. She took your order, turned back into the kitchen and returned with boxed sandwiches about 10 minutes later. I am not sure how she keeps up with a lunch crowd on weekdays. But the food was tasty. I can't comment on their authenticity, as I really don't remember eating these things in Denmark, but we tried a roast beef sandwich:

And a Dansk-boeuf (meatloaf, more or less) sandwich:

Danish or not, these were tasty and quite fulfilling. Unfortunately, the blue skies turned grey very quickly and the rain chased us home for the afternoon. We were motivated to venture out again later to meet up with a fellow American ex-pat who is working at the same university that I am. We met at St. Urho's Pub, which was a take on a British pub. It was a nice restaurant/bar, but I did not take my camera along. We would definitely return. 

This weekend at home was the annual Iowa State vs. Iowa football game. The 2:30 game time meant 10:30 here, so we had to wait until Sunday morning for the result. Let me just say, that Iowa is a Cyclone state! The outcome of the game is never certain, even if one team is far more talented. This year it appears as though there was no talent on either team, just a little luck for the good guys. :)

We decided to spend today in the city center. There is an exhibit at one of the art museums, The Ateneum (http://www.ateneum.fi/en), of one of Finland's most famous painter, Helene Schjerfbeck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helene_Schjerfbeck). The building is gorgeous, inside and out. 

My co-workers have been haggling me to go, asking every Monday whether or not I had been to the exhibit. Indeed, the Finns are proud of her: the first floor contained the exhibit and was packed. The second floor held other Nordic artists, including a few more Schjerfbeck pieces, and was deserted. She was a prolific painter, and quirky. A number of her paintings were not hung on the wall, but displayed in order to walk around. If Ms. Schjerfbeck did not like a painting, she simply flipped the piece of canvas over and painted something else. The big revelation this week was the discovery of another painting, concealed beneath a second piece of canvas in a frame. This was very big news in Helsinki, and we could hardly get to the newest painting on display.

In other news, we were finally granted our identification numbers this week. This means that we can obtain permanent bus passes, apply for health insurance, sign up for a cell phone plan, and register for permanent library cards. In addition, our U.S. marriage is now recognized in Finland on the arrival of our Apostille forms. We begin our Finnish language lessons soon. For now, I will sign off with the 20% of Finnish that I know: hei hei!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

We moved over the weekend, so we didn't have time for our normal weekend hijinks, so this post will be about an important aspect of life in Finland: recycling. The concept is not new to us, as we would store up our recyclables and take them to the recycling center every 2-3 weeks. But this is recycling on steroids. In Finland, everything is recycled. This is what our garbage can looked like:

The bin on the left was for all recyclables, the bin in the middle with the green bag is for biowaste, and the bin on the right was for all other trash. The green biowaste bags are actually biodegradable, which begins just a few days after tossing in some banana peels or onion bits. With all of these different bins, each apartment building has several containers for all of these options. Even at my work there are three trash bins in a cluster for the recycling, biowaste, and trash. It is a very serious thing as several people have told me how to throw out my trash, and there are even pamphlets with instructions. :)

In the U.S., several states have deposits for aluminum cans and beer and wine bottles. Here, they have the same deal, but the deposits are more substantial. Cans at €0.15, pop and water bottles are €0.20, and large water bottles (1.5L) are €0.40. This ensures return of ALL bottles and cans, and it is not uncommon to see people (homeless and pensioners) digging through trash cans in public places searching for these little paydays. 

In addition, stores take part in reducing the use of shopping bags by charging for them. Each bag costs €0.19 or more. This isn't a large fee, but it encourages people to bring their own reusable bags -- we certainly do. Again, this is not a big change as we took our own bags to the grocery store in the US. I think this measure does work as I have only seen a few people buy bags at the check-out in which to carry home their groceries.

Recycling is very easy to do here: it doesn't require driving to a center with your baskets full of recyclables, and the higher deposit prices are quite motivating for returning those bottles and cans! These factors imply that recycling is held in high esteem.