What did you say?

Write in your posts about cultural shocks and other culture-related matters, on language, sights, food etc.

Above is a part of the assignment for the course I am following, so also part of this blog in general.
And in the first few days of our staying here, I think we have seen a lot of differences between Finland and my home country. Maybe I haven't noticed them all, overwhelmed by all of the impressions. Maybe I haven't noticed them, because it kinda felt like we were on a holiday for a week or so. The idea that we are going to live here for the next couple of months, still needed to land. But for now the idea of a holiday, was fine by us. A holiday never hurts anyone, right?

Okay, I digress a little bit with my thoughts about white sand beaches, sea and palm trees. Back to Finland, with a completely different climate and culture. Back to the title of this post, which refers to the Finnish language.
'Cause man, what are they saying? The Finnish language, to me, sounds like no other language I have ever heard in my life. And the sound of the language may be 'weird', did you ever have a look at how the words are written?! It looks so difficult.. Will we ever understand some of it?


So the language was quite of a shock to us. We didn't really knew what to expect of the language when we came here. The hardest part of it is, that not everybody here speaks English. So sometimes it is really difficult to make clear to the other person what you want to say to him or her. An other thing that I find a little bit hard for myself, is that I can't speak a word of Finnish. I feel very rude when I am not able to say 'hello' to someone in their own language.

But we are only here for two weeks right now, so I really hope that in the next weeks and moths I will learn to speak a little Finnish and can understand a bit of what the people are saying.

In the meantime I am trying to pay as much attention as possible to what people are saying at a certain moment and I try to remember that. That got me to the point where I can say 'hello' and 'bye'. Kind of impressing right? Not.

But next week my course 'Finnish for exchange students' is starting, so I hope that I can bring my Finnish vocabulary to the level where I can order a pizza or maybe a real Finnish dish.

So I hope that this post makes it clear that the Finnish language was the biggest culture shock we experienced.

At the end of this post I will leave a few Finnish words and sentences, just to see what you guys think it means in your language and let you have a look at the Finnish language.

Nähdään!

Aniek

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Hei hei!
Kippis
Puhutko englantia? --> Maybe it is a good idea that I practice this one.
Moi
Mitä kuuluu?
Ei
Kiitos
Hyvää huomenta
Jäätelö --> Really important!
Saammeko vielä yhden annoksen --> Also an important one!