(Part 2) Top products from r/Finland

I have several friends that live in Finland, so I get to go and stay for free. I spent about 4 days in Rovaniemi for skiing last year. As an American looking over the side of the bridge and seeing a partially submerged speed limit sign, I thought, "Huh. The road has been flooded by the adjacent river and frozen over." Nope. They turned part of the river in a road. The river road speed limit is about 20 mph. :)

Useful information, VITAMIN D and a sun lamp are your friends. I used this sunlamp while living in Northern France. Seasonal Depression is a real thing and it blows.

Like the kind Finnish redditor mentioned, Finns don't generally do small talk. This is almost always true. Fight the urge to chit chat American style.

Also, learn sauna etiquette as saunas are very important in Finnish culture. Your board shorts in the pool and shower aren't going to fly. There is nothing better than beer and a sauna.

Speaking of beer, Finland has some great beer, but you may have to look around for it. I've some excellent beers in Finland which had complex flavors.

Remember that you are in Europe. Travel is relatively cheap once you get there, but living up north may make it a little more inconvenient and / or expensive.

Sign up for a VR account -national rail system. You can get some excellent deals.

Good luck and have fun!

> Yes, those are factors that could plausibly affect the learning curve.

Sure, plausibly they could affect the learning, but that's a bit different than 'it doesn't make sense that every language is as easy to learn', don't you think?

> If we take any language, and then artificially make it twice as difficult to learn by making new, difficult rules to the grammar, it would (almost by definition) mean that such a language would be more difficult to learn to a toddler.

But that's the thing - even very complex grammar rules such as grammatical genders or Finnish-style agglutinated suffixes (and their order!) are pieces of cake to toddlers. They just pick them up very rapidly while second language learners struggle with these for decades.

Here's a paper on the magnificient Stephen Pinker on the topic of language acquisition and also touching a little bit on the different languages topic. If you're interested, his book The Language Instinct is a more in-depth look at the issue at hand and a fun read. Pinker, in general, is a wonderful writer and I'd especially recommend his book The Blank Slate for an interesting look into humanity.

The study you linked to is interesting, but using different parts of the brain - in this case, to decode the tonality of the language - doesn't really say anything about difficulty. Note that the researches uses the term 'different' while the journalist invokes 'more difficult'. This would explain, however, why speakers of tonal languages more commonly have perfect pitch, though..

Something that's more Christmas food nowadays, but used to be more generic food for feasts or other special occasions, are swede/rutabaga, carrot (and rice) and potato casseroles. E.g. This site has recipes for the first two in English: https://finland.fi/christmas/christmas-cookbook/#cas. Or then there's this endearingly home-made website (which, by the url, does seem to be just some individual person's personal website): http://www.saunalahti.fi/marian1/gourmet/xmas_c.htm, which also has the potato one.

And "Karjalanpaisti", a meat stew containing both pork and beef cubes, is now widespread and considered quite traditionally Finnish, but from the name I think it's at least possible it used to mostly be eaten in the southeast, and spread across Finland after WWII, the same as the karjalanpiirakat/karelian pastries.

We had this book at home when I was a kid (lived abroad, having an English source for the names of ingredients was handy + to share and teach recipes to housekeepers etc.), I think my mom still has it somewhere, and I still think it's a great English-language source for Finnish foods and maybe some culture too (although the 1980s perspective may of course now be dated in parts, Finnish cuisine has diversified since, but that covers the traditional stuff really well). Kind of hard to find now though. ;)

Here are some books I found on Amazon that might be decent:

[Henrik Meinander: A History of Finland] (https://www.amazon.com/History-Finland-Henrik-Meinander/dp/0199327211/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?keywords=finnish+history&qid=1573978622&sprefix=Finnish+his&sr=8-7)

[Anu Partanen: The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life] (https://www.amazon.com/Nordic-Theory-Everything-Search-Better/dp/0062316559/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?keywords=finnish+history&qid=1573978622&sprefix=Finnish+his&sr=8-13)

Katja Pantzar:
The Finnish Way: Finding Courage, Wellness, and Happiness Through the Power of Sisu

Aino Havukainen: This is Finland

So are you abroad and the teacher is Finnish and he's leaving back to Finland? Maybe he has stayed a year or two abroad? Any details would be helpful.

While Sauna is very Finnish I doubt it makes good presents, especially for a male. Sauna hat, perhaps?. Here's another. It's funny, it's got the red star of Soviet Finland (SF).

Maybe something more generic, like Finnish chocolate

• Fazer Blue
  
• Fazer Wiener Nougat
  
• Fazer Geisha
  
  

I have a dog and have tried pretty much every removal tool, this twisty style works the best, you can get them in the pharmacy - https://www.amazon.co.uk/OTom-02-3785-Otom-Tick-Twister/dp/B0089BOK12

Good choice to recommend Unknown Soldiers. Here's a pic of my English language copy that I bought in the Academic Bookstore (Akateeminen Kirjakauppa). http://imgur.com/HNVadP3

This book is about the Continuation War, which out of context makes it sound like the Finns were Allied with the Nazi's, when the real situation was much more complicated.

For some real context on Unknown Soldiers I would recommend getting your hands on a copy of The Diplomacy of The Winter War by Max Jakkobson https://www.amazon.com/Diplomacy-Winter-War-Russo-Finnish-1939-1940/dp/0674209508

And then you will understand the whole breadth of the Soviet Invasion of Finland in 1939 and why Finland was so trapped they felt the need to fight alongside Germany, but not be actual allies or part of the Axis.

Historically speaking, Finland even fought a war against Nazi Germany also, called The Lapland War.

Enough war talk... you can impress this girl maybe by googling The Kalevala, the Finnish epic poem, and it's compiler, Elias Lonrot.

Music. There is a TON of great Finnish music... start basic pop... Jenni Vartianen https://youtu.be/PKidLh1Ryq4

Halloo Helsinki. https://youtu.be/6IhnydCct80

A huge collection of Finnish Hip Hop here, a lot of which is excellent, Suomi Rap / Finnish Rap: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD1E1556872EEE682

And then of course Nightwish for your introduction to Finnish Metal (best metal in the world is from Finland) https://youtu.be/Lj7WrKfw6n0

Good luck!

A really great trilogy (even if the translation is a little clumsy at times) is "Under the North Star" (Täällä Pohjantähden alla) by Väinö Linna.

Can be found on Amazon for example.

http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Finnish-Hippocrene-CDs/dp/0781812283/ref=pd_sim_b_1 this is the book I thought would help the most. Do you agree or should I keep looking?

You can also get these grip thingies http://www.amazon.com/Yaktrax-Walker-Traction-Cleats-Snow/dp/B009LJBEEM/ref=pd_sim_sbs_468_7?ie=UTF8&dpID=41UV8n9%2BKZL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=13A388VD6Z5EJC3ZBPVS in case you wanna use your normal shoes :) If you're already in town, you can find them at Lidl or Kookenkä (they're cheaper than at Intersport). ¡¡Bienvenida y mucha suerte!! :D

Amazon.de offers free shipping when your order totals 39 euros or more.

Also amazon sells a book made by Beatrice Ojakangas that has traditional Finnish recipes from American ingredients.

The book is originally from -64 so recipes are definetly old if not traditional and some labels may not be even sold anymore.

https://www.amazon.com/LeaderPro-Stainless-Countertop-Tableware-Organizer/dp/B07V3BJSLT/ref=asc_df_B07V3BJSLT/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=381815209421&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10775155094181900350&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9015697&hvtargid=aud-798931705416:pla-817257202509&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=80595964929&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=381815209421&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10775155094181900350&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9015697&hvtargid=aud-798931705416:pla-817257202509

Pekka Hiltunen's Cold Courage and Black Noise

Thumbs up for Leena Krohn.

Actually an omnibus of her work was released just last month. It's titled "Leena Krohn: The Collected Fiction", spans 800+ pages and is available at least on Book Depository and Amazon.

Apparently they sell these stickers with Chinese lettering so maybe you could stick those in the new keyboard.

If the old laptop still works, you could also make a disk image from the hard drive and install it on the new computer. Then you would have your Chinese operating system and all your old files on the new one. Clonezilla is a free program for it, though you would need another disk to copy the old one into. Maybe you could borrow an external USB hard drive or something from your school?

But try the rice trick with silica packets first, it really works and absorbs moisture from the device, though screens can get damaged in a way where you can't really fix them without replacing them.