Jenna in Finland

Learning language is hard, y’all. Learning as an adult, compared to how children pick up new languages with infuriating ease, is a whole ‘nother level of difficulty.

I’ve had some great successes in learning. I work in Finnish at a part-time job, and I can communicate with people in Finnish now. Although I’m constantly trying to hone and polish my grammar so I sound more like myself, just in Finnish, I also get great satisfaction out of recalling from memory a new phrase or verb that better expresses what I’m trying to say.

With that said, I wish I could regale you with stories about my smooth-sailing success in learning Finnish, but those who have actually put in the effort to learn any language as an adult will chortle at all the times they had a perfect sentence drafted in their head which subsequently left their mouth sounding vastly different.

Bumcheek Festival

Take for instance the yearly Pakanafestarit. It’s pretty cool if you like all things related to Nordic folklore and mythology. I like spooky/witchy-related anything: tarot cards, books about the occult, you name it. I could sit and read H.P. Lovecraft over endless hot drinks for hours (this presumes one has free time, of which I long for a surplus). There’s not just vendors but lectures, demonstrations,and a general nice vibe to the whole event.

Last year I went to the festival with my daughter. When it was time to get ready to go to the event, I said to her ”Alright sweetie, let’s head to the pakarafestarit!”

Pakara means buttocks/gluteals in Finnish. So, I basically told my kid that we’re going to the buttcheek festival. The gluteus festivus. The junk-in-the-trunk jubilee, even.

Cue hysterical giggling and her roasting me about it. Said roasting continues to this day.

What Cabbage?

Broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica) is an edible green plant in the cabbage family (family Brassicaceae, genus Brassica) whose large flowering head, stalk and small associated leaves are eaten as a vegetable. Broccoli in Finnish is parsakaali, so literally “asparagus cabbage”, since parsa on its own means asparagus, and kaali on its own means cabbage. We like compound words ’round these parts.

Broccoli is also the vegetable I was trying to refer to when I slipped up that one time, again, in front of my kid. I said “persekaali”. This is of course ridiculous and funny because the vulgar term for buttocks in Finnish is perse. Yes indeed, I said “ass cabbage”.

Once again cue the raucous giggling and my kid going “moooooom you said a bad wooooord!” I rolled my eyes and smiled at her, letting her cackle at my silly mistake.

I have made worse mistakes than this and I’ll continue to make silly mistakes – I still do it even in English! I like to write about these types of things the most because they 1) are both super funny and deliciously awkward, and 2) remind other learners that we all make mistakes because that’s normal. Accidentally saying something vulgar in the language you’re learning is par for the course, and dare I say it, a rite of passage.

What’s your most embarrassing slip-up in a language you were learning?