Food and the Finnish Language

I should probably talk about Finnish food, since I seem to like it so much! It is much healthier than food in the US. I rarely ever see anything that has preservatives, artificial flavoring, or added sugar (the food back home is SO much sweeter than it is here!). A normal day might look like this:

Breakfast (I do not remember what it is called!): Every weekday morning for breakfast we have puuro, which is hot porridge. I add sugar to mine, because it is not sweetened of course. Then I add mustikkakeitto, which is blueberry soup, to give it more flavor. At every meal there is usually milk to drink, or juice sometimes at breakfast. But you can always have water if you want. Then there is cocoa powder to add to the milk, kind of like ovaltine! It is good!

Lunch (Lounas): I eat lunch at school of course on most weekdays. There is always salad and brown bread. The salad is not like back home though. Most of the time it just one vegetable like cucumbers, shredded carrots, or shredded cabbage. Or maybe there is a mix, like lettuce and melon for example. Any raw vegetable, it seems to me, they call a salad. Anyway, there is bread and salad, and then there is the main part of the meal. This always varies of course. On Thursday we had fish soup, which was surprisingly good. It had potatoes, carrots, and fish (obviously) in it. Sometimes there is a small dessert at lunch, but not very often.

Snack after School: When I get home from school there is usually a snack. This is maybe a sandwich and some fruit or vegetables. The bread here is so good! I love ruisleipä, which is dark rye bread. It is so healthy too. I think I said this before, but the bread is denser here. There is just more to it I suppose.

Dinner (Päivällinen...I think): Generally, dinner is eaten around four or five. For dinner I have had pasta with ham chunks, minced meat soup (so good!), potatoes and chicken in a sauce, and much more of course, but that is all I can remember right now! Then there is bread of at dinner as well.

Evening Snack (Iltapala): At night, around eight, there is iltapala, or evening snack. This is maybe one or two of the following: sandwich, bread, fruit, yogurt and granola, or this really good blueberry/whipped cream thing my host mom makes.

Dessert: There really is not dessert, but rather the desserts are eaten more sporadically. Like pulla… Yum! I love pulla. It is any kind of a bun basically. Like a cinnamon bun would be considered pulla. But there is a specific bun that is the main pulla. If that makes sense? It is a small sweet bun, but it is like nothing I have ever had before and it is so good! It has a very specific taste. Oh! Did I mention that Finns love coffee? I think I forgot! Finns drink coffee basically at any time of the day. Finnish coffee is good, but it is SO strong. Starbucks seems weak next to Finnish coffee.

I love going to the grocery store because all the food is so fresh and good. I can get mostly the same things (and more of course!) here than I can back home, but it just tastes better here. This is probably because I am a health freak. So I definitely love Finnish food!

Now… On to the Finnish language. It is actually not sounding so much like gibberish anymore! I can listen to my teachers and actually pick out a good amount of words. Not all of the words of course, but some! Sometimes it is hard though not to get bored in class. There is so much Finnish and the way it is spoken almost puts me to sleep in my morning classes! This is because Finnish is spoken in monotone. The tone of voice does not change, or fluctuate, or however that would be called. In English, for example, the tone always goes up at the end of a question…but not in Finnish. It is monotone, and the tone actually drops down at the end of a sentence.

But I do love the language. I might have just made it sound boring, but it is not! It is so interesting, and fun to speak. It sounds really beautiful if you speak it correctly. It is just so different from any language I have ever heard or learned about, especially because of the prepositions. The prepositions are not the same as they are in English because they are added to the end of words instead. For example: In Finland would translate to Suomessa. Suomi (Finland) and –ssa (which means in or at). So that makes things harder, because there are countless variations of one single word. It is crazy, but I love it!

People get so excited when I speak Finnish, especially at school. They are shocked that I actually know some Finnish and that I can speak it fairly well (for a beginner I suppose). Some people think it is impossible for foreigners to learn it, but I don’t think so. My host family helps me out a lot though too, since they speak a lot of Finnish with me. They say I am really good at Finnish, and they are surprised at how much I know. That makes me feel good! I really want to learn as much Finnish as I can. I mean, being fluent would be awesome. I will try my hardest. I am a language freak, so maybe it is possible! I start my Finnish classes in September, so that will help as well. I will have those classes twice a week. I think I will also start a hobby in September. I was thinking of starting dance… I want to do something different…

Well… Nähdään!