This time of the year it is very common to get foggy days in southern Finland. I find them very interesting because the combination of setting with metheorological phenomenon brings to my mind images of Viking longships raiding the marshes and woods of the lands of the Fenni.
A friend of mine did share a story of Vikings rading a warehouse full of precious animal furs near the town of Nokia, which is where it takes is name from (noki being “soot” and sable being as black as it). Somehow drunken barbarians warriors attacking a town for its pelts sounds pretty funny to me.
This brings me to another point: every once in a while I feel like the Arab guy in The 13th Warrior. Par for the course for a southerner living in these northern lands 😉
Over the years I’ve learned to accept as normal the many differences and quirks Finnish has for someone learning it as a second language. Some of the most hilarious I’ve seen or heard from others below:
Olen iloinen = I’m happy
Olen loinen = I’m a parasite
Minä välitän sinusta = I care about you
Minä valitan sinusta = I (will) complain about you
Minun kieli on turvonnut = My tongue is swollen
Minun kulli on turvonnut = My dick is swollen (happened to a guy who had just gotten a tongue piercing)
kolari = car crash
Kolari= town in Finnish Lapland where snow (or something like it) fell this week
Lo interesante de este comercial, estarán de acuerdo conmigo, es que en lugar de utilizar servicios de doblaje simplemente tomaron a la misma persona de su versión en inglés y lo pusieron a hablar español, con resultados aún más cómicos que el comercial original (abajo). Además, estoy seguro que el mismo comercial en español no funcionaría fuera de Estados Unidos porque sonaría demasiado raro a todos aquellos que no están acostumbrados al acento de un angloparlante. Creo que es obvio que para los vendedores de este producto el mercado latino era lo suficientemente importante.
Even though the name is rather contentious, it is definitely the main news topic worldwide. The rate of new cases seems to be going down in Mexico according to the Health Ministry, but there have been more deaths in Mexico and the first one abroad and the disease has spread to more countries, including a suspected case in Finland. In Mexico City most of my friends and family keep on staying home, and most have already paid a heavy-duty visit to the supermarket. I certainly hope the situation stabilises before other countries besides Argentina and Cuba suspend flights to the country.
In the cultural reaction front, there is plenty of photoshopped images doing the rounds, and others taken from the scene. There is now a second swine flu song, the first has been translated to English, and people keep on usinghumour as a way to cope, especially that now even restaurants in the city are closed (with losses of more than 70 million USD per day).
The WHO has raised its alert status to level 4. There have been over 2,300 cases in Mexico now, 700 still in hospital, 150 deceased. There are confirmed cases in Spain and Scotland, and closer to home suspected cases in Belgium, Sweden, Norway & Denmark. To make matters even worse, there was an earthquake in Mexico City today, although there is no reports of damages.
Although Mexicans are now starting to sound worried, some still cope by joking. Some people commented that the earthquake was basically another way of sneezing, and the influenza song now has a video. People are still staying home, following the instructions of the government, and the school shutdown has been expanded nationwide. If you speak Spanish, the Mexican Presidency has live video coverage of the situation here.
One very interesting consequence of the current situation with swine flu in Mexico (New Yortk Times, BBC, El Universal, Hesari) has been the reaction of the public. While of course the healthcare system is taking all possible measures and people are worried, quite a few have tended to cope with the situation through jokes (some of a very dark nature). People have started joking about zombies, politics, Hollywood disaster movies or the fact that it seems to be a mutation of bird, swine and human flu. There’s even a swine flu song…
A selection of tweets below (mostly in Spanish, sorry):
juanmanuel: acabo de cruzar y me pregunto el migra si tenia algo que declarar… le dijo nomas #influenza
SrBichi: Acabo de ver morir el disco duro que me dieron en el PDC. ¿Habrá muerto de #influenza?
chilangelina: Jajaja, mi mamá está en su casa aburrida y me llama para contarme que se compró una lámpara baratísima. Efectos colaterales de la #influenza
Finnish phonology differs greatly from that of other languages. Just like the rolled r doesn’t exist at all in many Asian languages, b, g & d are usually “fused” with p, k & t, while c, f, q, w, x and z are only used for loanwords.
This means that on rare occassions you might end up with a guy who think’s he’s saying “grabbed” sounding like “crapped” instead. As any other accent, you just get used to it.
