Jenna in Finland

In English, I swear like a sailor. I’ve got it down to an artform. Both my mom and stepmom taught me the value of a well-placed curse when the occasion calls for it. Unfortunately for them, I then joined the Marines at 19 and my vocabulary became so littered with profanities that one would wonder if I actually had anything else to say – thankfully, I do!

Learning to swear and express one’s anger in the way that they mean to is a particularly difficult challenge while learning a language. In my experience, I always come off as more intense than I mean to be. For the first years of my Finnish learning experience, I simply chose not to swear. I realized later on, though, that the average Finn thinks I’m a bit much, so I needed to find a way to be the whacky, talkative jenkki that I generally am both in English and Finnish.

Furthermore, my mantra mirrors the meme: “if you think I’m too much, go find less.”

Flying Rage vs. Annoyed

My favorite expression of anger is Jumalauta! This means (ja suomalaiset, korjatkaa jos olen väärässä!) something akin to “my god/god help [me]!” But I actually don’t use it. Womp wooomp.

The Finnish tv show Pasila has a main character that shouts “jumalauta!” every time something doesn’t go his way. If you can keep up with the fast-paced talking of the show, I’d highly recommend it. It’s very slapstick and I enjoy its silliness.

A Well-Placed V**u

I’m much more prone to saying vittu or saatana in Finnish. Why? Because when I’m seeing red, I usually throw in an f-bomb, mf-er, c-u-next-tuesday, or with my Pennsylvania drawl I say FÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄK. I actually thought for a while about how much swearing I do when speaking English and realized that I say “shit” more often than “fuck” for mild annoyance or when something bad happens but I’m not particularly angry about it. This hasn’t translated over into Finnish for me. The other day I was in Lidl and dropped a whole carton of eggs top down and they all broke. My reply was “voihan vittu!” to myself. And the way I was taught to say it is with extra emphasis on the swear word, like “voihan-VIT-tu!”

In all honesty, I really don’t swear that much in Finnish. My “getting ticked off” words typically go like this:

Mild Annoyance: voi helvetti/perhana/hitto/voi perjantai (instead of perkele)/herran jestas/hyvänen aika (because I’m a 90-year-old Karelian grandma)

Mid-level annoyance: saatana/mitä vittua/herra jumala

Pissed off/Angry: ViiiittU!/VIttu saatana/SAAtana!

Anway, that was fräkin’ fun to write. How do you swear in Finnish?