Paholainen ei puhu englantia (The Devil does not speak English)

Yesterday, I rode my bike downtown with Emily to have a biscuit and we decided to go to the Rio to see Paholainen Pukeutuu Pradaan (The Devil Wears Prada). Luckily for us, it was presented in English with dual Finnish/Swedish subtitles. The movie was very entertaining and more dramatic and moving than I had at first expected it to be. I would recommend seeing it (it's probably not necessary to see it in the theatre, DVD is fine) and it looks as though the book might be good as well (if its anything like the movie). Amazingly, we soon forgot about the subtitles and the fact that we were in a foreign country. We flew back to America (specifically New York) and briefly left Oulu behind. We then rejoined the Finnish race to ride our bikes 4 miles back to campus in the rainy Oulu dark.


Also...

Tonight at Caio, a graduate student noticed I spoke English and wants to hire me to proofread his masters thesis for spelling/grammatical errors. How cool!


Now for a brief Finnish lesson!

Here are a few things you may all like to pepper your conversations with in order to impress your friends and neighbors (please note that a certain accent mark, the two dots over O's and A's, is unavailable on my American keyboard). Also--some of you wanted to know what Finnish language was like. Here you go:

0 nolla
1 yksi
2 kaksi
3 kolme
4 nelja
5 viisi
6 kuusi
7 seitseman
8 kahdeksan
9 yhdeksan
10 kymmenen

Monday maanantai
Tuesday tiistai
Wednesday keskiviikko
Thursday torstai
Friday perjantai
Saturday lauantai
Sunday sunnuntai

Hei. (Hello)
Hei hei. (Good-bye)
Joo. (Yes)
Ei. (No)
Kiitos. (Thank you)
Ole hyvä. (You're welcome)

Minä olen kaksikymmentayksi. (I am 21)
Minä olen amerikkalainen. (I am American)
Minä puhun englantia ja vähään ranska. (I speak English and a little French)
Minä asun yliopistokadulla. (I live on University Street)

Puhutko englantia? (Do you speak English?)
Mitä on englanteksi? (What is it in English?)
Mitä kuuluu? (How's it going?)
Mitä kello on? (What time is it?)

Tervetuloa! (Welcome!)
Hyvää huomenta. (Good morning)
Hyvää paivää. (Good day)
Hyvää yöta. (Good night)
Hauskaa viikonloppua. (Have a nice weekend)

Oulun yliopisto (University of Oulu)

Minä olen (I am)
Sinä olet (You are)
Hän on (He is/She is)
Me olemme (We are)
Te olette (You are; plural)
He ovat (They are)

I hope that wasn't terribly boring. Now you know some Finnish! Remember these key things:

j is pronounced "y" (yellow)
i is pronounced "ee" (evil)
a is pronounced "ah" (awful)
e is pronounced "ay" (day)
u is pronounced "oo" (food)
y is pronounced "oo" (nasal)
ö is pronounced "oh" (nasal)
ä is pronounced "aa" (apple)

A double vowel (uu, oo) is simply elongated. A double consonant (kk, tt) is also just lengthened.

The stress always comes on the first syllable of the word. Sentence intonation always falls-- even in questions the pitch does not rise at the end of a sentence.

That's all for now!

d