Finnish IRL

Finland, explained

Sisu, kalsarikännit, perkele, forty words for snow. The famous Finnish words, and how much of the story is true.

4 articles

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Does Finnish have 40 words for snow? Not quite
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The longest Finnish word is 61 letters of Lego
It is less a word than a very specific job advert 11 min read

Some Finnish words got out. Sisu is on a car badge, kalsarikännit has an official emoji, perkele is the one thing everybody can quote. The versions that travelled are rarely the versions Finns use, and a couple of them were marketing before they were anything else.

So these pieces go and check: sisu was a bad quality before it was a good one, the snow list cheats, and the leading theory about where the word Suomi comes from changed its own mind. Nothing here needs you to be learning Finnish - it is the half of the site you can send to somebody who is not.

Nearly all of these get filed as slang by somebody, and nearly none of them are. Why sisu, löyly and myötähäpeä are not slang sorts out which of the three things a famous word actually is.