REACTING TO FUNNY LITERAL FINNISH TRANSLATIONS

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

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!

"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

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.

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

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.

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...

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

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!

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

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

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".

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

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 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!

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".

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.

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.

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..."

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 🤣

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.

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

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

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

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.

As a finn I can confirm that these videos are really funny

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 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

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."

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

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

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

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

The lohikäärme as a word has just simplified over time. The original form is "louhikäärme" where louhi is an old word for stones broken up by mining (louhia). So it is actually "rock snake" or a "mine snake" as dragons live inside mountains with their plunder of gold. But the form of the word has shortened over time to just "lohikäärme" which has also changed the literal meaning.

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

I really love the finnish word for "the world": maailma (soil+air).
It's simple, but accurate: includes not only the ground, but also the atmosphere

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

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

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.

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

Lohikäärme is a modern version of "Louhikäärme". Louhi is a character in Finnish national epic Kalevala. She's a powerful witch and the main antagonist of the verse. So essentially, "louhikäärme" (and thus lohikäärme as its derivative) means "witchsnake", even if "noita" is the way more commonly used word for witch in Finnish these days.

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... 🕯️📖

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!

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

Google Translate on pihalla kuin lumiukko 😂 I also always get very annoyed with these literal translations because there can be multiple translations for a word and they use the incorrect one to make it sound funnier than it actually is. Nevertheless, you reacting to funny literal translations is entertaining, so thank you again for a fun video!

My Finnish husband sitting next to me said "maapallo" is globe, like one you buy in a store, or if you're referring to the earth as a globe. Both his mom and stepmom were English teachers, so he's pretty good at this translation thing.

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!

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.

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.

The story behind lohikäärme is:
Our finnish language developer Mikael Agricola brought use thousands of new words and he saw "dragon's" skin which looked like salmon's scales (so there is lohi, salmon) and then the dragon was long snake with wings, so there the snek :)
I hope you read it because you wanted to know

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)

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.

I only learned to name the month by its number a while ago. I would always have to recite the entire list of months on my head, both in Finnish and in English.

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.

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.🥪

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

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.

As a native Finn, you don't usually put much thought on these kind of things. For us, they're always been like that: lohi is salmon, käärme is snake, but lohikäärme is a compeletely different thing. I believe that this comes from old pagan religions, just like word ukkonen/ukonilma (thunder). It was believed that Ukko Ylijumala controlled the weather and thunder was the way to show that he was angried.
Also, I'm very bad at month names equally on every foreign language I speak. I often get confused between June/July and August/September. Same goes for Swedish and Spanish as well.

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.

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.

I love your finnish pronounciation, as native finn, it sounds so 😄

In case someone hasn't already explained it, the Finnish word for "oak" in tammikuu actually means originally a core or a nucleus. So it refers to midwinter, but the word has lost its meaning and usually people don't know what it used to mean.

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

Ihan video ja myös mielenkiintoinen aihe. . Jatkaa sama mallin.. 🇫🇮👍

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".

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

There are many funny literal translation in vegetables as well.
Broccoli is in finnish: Paraskaali
Parsa= Aspargus
Kaali= Gabbage
Broccoli is: Aspargus Gabbage
Kale is Leaf Gabbage

One Finnish word I find fascinating is MAAILMA. Containing maa (Earth/ground/land/country) and ilma (air). So ground-air which means the world or universe. So everything in theground and in the air; the world. Works beautifully.

Before fridges there were boxes or closets where one put ice that one bought to keep things cold. Those were known as iceboxes in English. In Finnish the name remained even when the technology changed.

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. :)

Actually, i'd say i speak english quite well by now, but i still do months by counting "january, february, march" etc. because i still haven't bothered to actually learn them correctly. Sometimes i even forget what a certain month was called in english. I know numbers thankfully tho😅
I feel like numbers are way more important than months, but of course if you're gonna be living in the country where they speak the language you're learning, then it would probably be a good idea to learn them thoroughly aswell

Yeah, open-face sandwiches are way more common in my experience as well when it comes to ones people make at home.

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)

Your impression of a Finn speaking English was spot on:D

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

This is old Finnish: jalopeura (noble deer) meaning 'lion'. During the shift of 19th and 20th century, there was a Finnish boom. Swedish names were changed Finnish. The modern work for lion, leijona, was unthinkable during those days. The Finnish versions weren't always so successful, like this one.

I always sing a song still in my head about months that we learned in the English lessons in the third grade like 100 years ago 😅 It's like: January, February, March, April, May...lalala...even tough I am reasonably fluent in English really 😅

I am amazed by how many of these terms are composed of the same words as in german.

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

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.

These are quite funny.. Especially from a not Finnish person.thank you for chearing my day.

I’m so glad I found this channel!!! I decided to learn Finnish at almost random ( I’m a huge history nerd and gun nut, plus I dislike communist Russia) but I have no one to to practice with or tutor with, this is Close enough! Hyvä Suomi!

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.

Idk if this has anything to do with the origin of the word dragon in Finnish, but in many Asian cultures dragons actually are considered water lizards/serpents rather than fire breathing creatures. Also the Finnish epic Kalevala has this huge water serpent that might have been the inspiration for the word?

Speaking of Finnish months... They do have names rooted into what the month is about.
Tammikuu / January (lit. oak month) = in old finnish tammi meant the heart so tammikuu refers the month to be the heart of winter.
Helmikuu / February (lit. pearl month) = refers to the pearl like ice that the month usually has
Maaliskuu / March = either means the month of revealing earth or month of bubbling sap
Huhtikuu / April = from word huhta meaning "to swidden" because it was usually done that month
Toukokuu / May = lliterally meaning the month of field work (when you turn the fields, plant the seeds, etc..)
Kesäkuu / June (lit. summer month) = From the first actual month of summer
Heinäkuu / July (lit. hay month) = Usually hay is harvested during this month
Elokuu / August (lit. harvest / living month) = From the word elonkorjuu that literally means harvest time
Syyskuu / September (lit. autumn month) = The month that starts the autumn
Lokakuu / October (lit. messy / dirt month) = From the fact the fields are usually messy and muddy due to all the rains of autumn
Marraskuu / November (translates to something like death month) = From the word marras meaning death as basically everything growing dies turing the month
Joulukuu / December (lit. Christmas month) = because does this need explanation :D

I love to watch these kind of videos every now and then (you're doing great in Finnish by the way :) ) .
But that butterbread-sandwich differentiation can be puzzling, I'd say "voileipä", butterbread, can be just bread and butter and toppings and sandwich should be translated as "kerrosleipä" or "kerrosvoileipä" because there are 2 slices, layers of bread. Just a few thoughts about it :)

It's interesting to me that most of these are pretty much the same as in Swedish

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

I'm a Finn and I'm shocked that I came across this channel only now :o As you know, we usually go "torille!" whenever we are even mentioned on Clip-Share.

As a finnish person this was really fun to watch. :D

Some literal translations that better convey the individual words
5:34 Shield Goon
6:24 Heat State

My respect for learning this weird but cool language

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

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.

When you try to use google translate and you speak Finnish = the pain 😂😂😂

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.

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

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

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

As a German these combinations aren't as unfamiliar as they are to a English native speaker. We also have butterbread and I'm sometimes really surprised how often words are made of the same components in Finnish as they are in German. pesukarhu = washing bear (Waschbär in German, the same words in the same order), in English would be raccoon (for whatever reason)