35 Comments »

1. Pull a cunt over your head.

   Comment by DAVE THE MAVE — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 2:57 pm

2. i have been living in finland for 26 years and that’s my age too. but these sounds unfamiliar to me.

   can someone put original finnish expressions!

   Comment by lizrat — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 3:18 pm

3. Good continuation, if your own is not enough.

   Life is hard but without hard there is no life.

   Time for everyone, said goat when the head was cut.

   Our sauna is burning too.

   Dear Sylvi and five other women.

   Forward, said granny in the snow.

   Some swings them gentlemen have said groom, when he saw the patron hanged.

   Hymn 555, 5 last verses.

   You people are so cunt-looking I’m getting a hard-on

   Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 3:25 pm

4. can someone put original finnish expressions!

   Ok.

   1. Hyvää päivää kirvesvartta!
   2. Tuli kuin Manulle illallinen.
   3. Ei itku auta markkinoilla.
   4. Täällä on väkeä kuin pipoa / ihan pipona.
   5. Aina roiskuu kun rapataan.
   6. “Hetkinen”, sanoi Putkinen ja pieraisi puhelimeen.
   7. Heitä homo voltti.
   8. Asialliset hommat hoidetaan, mutta muuten ollaan kuin Ellun kanat.

   (I have no idea about the number 9.)

   10. Heko-heko, osta mopo.

   Comment by Ã…boy — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 3:32 pm

5. Some more:

   - Like two berries
   - A cry from a long joy
   - I’m so hungry that it’s blurring my vision
   - They ran around like headless chicken
   - That dog whimpers which gets hit by the stick

   And a couple of rude ones:

   - Pull a cunt over your head and flee to the mountains
   - The smaller the man, the bigger the balls

   Comment by Ã…boy — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 3:41 pm

6. 9. Olo on kuin osuuskaupan myyjällä (ennen inventaariota).

   So no.9 usually continues ‘…before inventory’ i.e the shopkeeper is excited about the money in the cash register and sold items matching.

   Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 3:41 pm

7. Just remembered some more:

   - He who remembers the old shall be stabbed in the eye
   - Like pigs in the field
   - Pearls for pigs
   - “Sower”, said the fox of the rowanberries

   Comment by Ã…boy — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 4:00 pm

8. (Blah.. My bad english led me astray. The last one is of course:

   - “Sour“, said the fox of the rowanberries.)

   

   Comment by Ã…boy — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 4:06 pm

9. I guess it’s a “Finnish thing” that I just don’t understand. ALL of these are lost on me.

   Comment by funkybrownchick — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 4:16 pm

10. I’d write some of the translations a little different:
    5. Rapatessa roiskuu.
    6. “Hetkonen”, sanoi Putkonen ja pieraisi puhelimeen.

    Anyway, you’ll get the idea They have found very funny phrases for this. Not all would be so absurd when translated (for example, in these comments there are many of those who are just a translation and not funny at all). I loved the translations in 2001 and they are probably still somewhere in my boxes… I think I’ll save this, too

    Comment by Saara — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 4:26 pm

11. #7 “- Pearls for pigs”

    Finland does not have a copyright on the expression “pearls before the swine”.

    Comment by Kimmo W. — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 6:38 pm

12. off-top
    I didn’t know that after declaring the independence, Finns demolished russian orthodox churches.
    This one from 1920s, Lapeenranta
    http://www.ljplus.ru/img3/k/o/kommari/pic-034-1.JPG

    Comment by Alex — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 6:44 pm

13. “…after declaring the independence, Finns demolished russian orthodox churches.”

    Yes, a lot of ugly things happened in the war of 1918. However, it was not systematic. Uspenski cathedral is still standing and in places, like Ilomantsi, they have had the orthodox church next to lutheran church on the same hill for hundreds of years with no problems whatsoever. Only time there has been some mutual sneering was when lightning struck on the lutheran church and burned it down.

    Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 7:12 pm

14. #11

    Instead of using the expression “pull a cunt over your head and flee to the mountains” I’ll just settle to thank you for bringing that to my attention. I genuinely wasn’t aware of the piggy-sayings international status.

    Comment by Ã…boy — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 7:22 pm

15. Slightly off topic, but slightly related, there’s a great website documenting Finnish subtitle bloopers on television, videos and film. Definitely worth a look.

    http://www.jounipaakkinen.fi/kaannos.html

    A couple of examples:

    “Due to the graphic nature of this program, viewer discretion is advised.”
    “Ohjelman luonteen takia katsojilla on vaitiolovelvollisuus.”

    “I’m going to give him a wedgie!”
    “Annan hänelle kasvisvoileivän.”

    Comment by Kimmo W. — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 7:22 pm

16. Kimmo W., it sounds to me that the one in English means something else than the Finnish ones. I’m sure there are others too, that occur in several languages, like the one about the fox and the berries. In England it’s just not rowanberries, but, if I recollect it right, blackberries.

    Comment by Kaislis — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 7:25 pm

17. -s

    Comment by Kaislis — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 7:26 pm

18. Greed has a shitty ending.
    The beginning is always difficult, in the end stands thank you.
    Help a man in the hill.
    Not even a poor man’s mouth is made of bark.
    Warmth does not break your bones.
    You should not look at the hair of a dog.
    An apple does not fall far from the tree.
    Learning does not drop you to the ditch.
    Damage does not come with a bell around neck.
    Emergency does not study law.
    Who digs a hole for another, for every other not.
    You get used to everything except an icicle in the ass.
    There are us to many trains, some stay at the station.
    What you steal while you are young you will own when you are old.
    You must twist the whip while you are young.
    Own country strawberry, other country blueberry.
    The day shines also to a brushwood pile.
    A pot blames a kettle, both have a black flank.
    From the boy shall the knee get better.
    Ground frost drives the pig home.
    From the word a man, from the horn a bull.
    Suits like a fist in the eye.
    “It is good to live in Toivo,” a tapeworm said.
    “Tricks are many,” said a hag while wiping the table with a cat.
    Stupidity will be fined.
    Full like Turunen’s gun.
    Old salt makes you thirsty.
    Rolls like a lingonberry in the cunt.

    Comment by Juho M. — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 7:54 pm

19. #16 “Helmiä sioille” is certainly the Finnish equivalent of “pearls before the swine”.

    The one about the fox and the berries is known in English as “sour grapes” (at least in the United States).

    Speaking about berries, I wish that someone would have pointed out to Conan when he commented on the Ilta Sanomat (or was it Iltalehti) headline about him and Tarja Halonen being “like two berries” that the expression is the Finnish equivalent of the English “like two peas in a pod”.

    Comment by Kimmo W. — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 9:00 pm

20. #18 and others: What’s funny in translating universal idioms from Finnish to English?

    “Pearls before swine” a distinctively Finnish saying? Oh, the damning effects of secularisation!

    Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 9:24 pm

21. “What’s funny in translating universal idioms from Finnish to English?”

    Well, they are absurd already in finnish and translated they are absurd cubed, given that absurd is much greater than 1.

    Many of those sayings are not particularly funny or witty an sich even in the finnish context, but they are powerful, if used in suitably inappropriate situations or by Matti Nykänen.

    Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 10:16 pm

22. Well, they are absurd already in finnish and translated they are absurd cubed, given that absurd is much greater than 1.

    Sure, when they are not just Anglo-Saxon idioms badly translated back into English…

    Hey, I just came up with another one:

    Stupidity precipitates in Jouko.

    Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 10:22 pm

23. Condenses, not precipitates. An inexcusable blunder.

    Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 10:23 pm

24. This remains me those user’s guides translated from chinese to english to sweden… to finnish.
    Finnish guide about mp3 player: using this device in moving vehicle may cause an accident, which might be illegal in some areas.

    Comment by issi — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 11:13 pm

25. to #13

    Antti, I am not blaming anyone or trying to provoke, was just somehow surpsized… I guess a lot of info available about these times, but in Finnish…

    Comment by Alex — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 8:44 am

26. Some of those sayings are wordplay. It only “works” if there is a similar saying. Like the tapeworm and Toivo. Toivo is a male given name. And people say “live in hope” as in “you wish” or “wishful thinking”… so maybe, umm…

    Its good to live in hope, said the tapeworm living in Hope.

    But yeah, I think I’ll exit like the janitor from a frozen tin roof.

    Comment by Hank W. — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 10:07 am

27. “I guess a lot of info available about these times, but in Finnish…”

    I think that’s the case. Obviously 1918 was a big deal nationally, but in the world history, it’s just one little detail in WWI.

    “I think I’ll exit like the janitor from a frozen tin roof.”

    …and I’ll stay like shit in Junttila’s livingroom wall.

    Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 12:35 pm

28. And I’ll be hanging around like “jätkä’s” snot on the fence.

    Comment by Ã…boy — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 2:46 pm

29. And I’ll exit like the syphilis from Töölö.
    … Or like a cuban missile.

    Comment by issi — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 9:20 pm

30. infinndel will eat the frog’s eyeballs soup..

    Comment by inFINNdel — Sun, Jan 28th, 2007 @ 3:40 am

31. “Nice color, but way too many tools”, said the gypsy about the Soviet flag.

    Comment by FinnFreak — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 11:47 am

32. …and here’s a few more gems:

    Naama on ku sateenraiskaama lehemän paska. - The face just like a rain raped cow’s crap.

    Emännällä ei ollu ku vittu ja virsikirja talohon tulles ja molemmat on kakarat repiny. - The missus didn’t have anything but a cunt and a hymn book when she moved in, and they’ve both been torn up by the kids.

    Kihiloos ja kännis on kiva olla mutta naimisis ja krapulas yhtä helevettiä. - It’s cool to be engaged and drunk, but hell to be married and a hangover.

    Kaikki on katunu jokka Nurmoosta on lähteny,ja nekin jokka on takaasin tullu. - Everyone who have left Nurmo has regretted it, also those who have returned.

    Kyllon rahaa, mutton reirekki kipiät. - Plenty of money, but the legs are sore too.

    “Jo on ristuksen isoo rilli”, sanoo lapualaaspoika ku näki ens kertaa mäk ronaltsin. - “That’s a fuckin’ big chip shop”, said the boy from Lapua, when he saw McDonald’s for the first time.

    On niin kiirus, nottei kissiäkää kerkiä sanomahan ku pitkähäntääseksi eläämeksi. - I’m in such a hurry, that I can only call a cat an animal with a long tail.

    En oo korvaamaton, mutta paras maharollinen. - I’m not irreplacable, but the best available.

    Ei tälläästä ryyppäämistä kukaan selevin päin kestä! - Nobody can stand drinking like this sober.

    Joka perseensä nostaa, se paikkansa menettää. - Who lifts one’s ass, loses his seat.

    Mihinä teitä pirettihin ku rumia tapettihin. - Where were you when the ugly were killed.

    Suus kiinni ku mulle puhut. - Shut up, when you talk to me.

    Älä päästä sitä ihimisten ilimoolle, ennenkun se o oppinu ihimisten tavoolle. - Don’t let him amongst people, before he has leared how to behave.

    Comment by FinnFreak — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 12:29 pm

33. those Ostrobotnian ones are killers

    Comment by Hank W. — Tue, Jan 30th, 2007 @ 9:14 pm

34. Some more..

    Parempi kuin uusi venäläinen.
    Better than a new russian.

    Seisoo kuin kyrpä häissä.
    Standing like a cock in the weddings.

    Niin kiero, että syö rautanaulan ja paskantaa ruuvin.
    So twisted, he eats a nail and shits a screw

    Pyörii, kuin hullun mulkku mielettömän perseessä.
    Rolling like a crazy dick in mindless ass.

    Lapsihan on ihan isänsä näköinen; mutta pääasia että on terve.
    The kid looks just like his father, but the main point is, that his healthy.

    Hauskaa kuin raastinraudalla runkkaaminen.
    As fun as wanking with a shave.

    Huutaa, kuin mummo uunissa.
    Yells, like a granny in a stove.

    Mukava kuin lehmän muna.
    Nice as a cows dick.

    Käsi heiluu kuin turkkilaisella vitun suolaajalla.
    The hand is swinning like a turkish cunt salter.

    Comment by Mikey — Thu, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 11:37 pm

35. That “eats iron and shits chainlink” from Linna’s Unknown Soldier is a bit old. In today’s Nokia era, it’s “eats glass and shits optical cable”.

    Comment by sepisp — Sun, Feb 4th, 2007 @ 3:52 am

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