Finnish IRL
torilla tavataan - a cheering crowd in blue and white filling Helsinki's Kauppatori market square after a Finland win, flags up around the Havis Amanda fountain

torilla tavataan

/ˈtorilːɑ ˈtɑvɑtɑːn/

See you at the market square. What Finland posts when Finland wins something

Quick answer

Torilla tavataan means see you at the market square: the summons that goes round when Finland has won something worth gathering for.

  • It started at the ice hockey. Crowds gather at the tori, the central market square, when Finland wins a championship, and the phrase is the summons.
  • Online it has become a running joke, posted under any sighting of Finland abroad.

What torilla tavataan is

The phrase calls everyone to the square. Grammatically it is the passive - literally at the market square it is met, which is how Finnish proposes things to a group.

The tori in question is a real place in every Finnish town: the central market square, and in Helsinki the Kauppatori by the harbour.

torilla tavataan at a glance

Means See you at the square
Said when Finland wins
Comes from Ice hockey
The square The tori
In Helsinki Kauppatori
Grammar The passive

How Finns actually use torilla tavataan

After a national win, most reliably ice hockey. The phrase started as an ice hockey chant and stuck.

Online, wherever Finland turns up unexpectedly in a foreign context. Someone posts torilla tavataan and a small pile-up of Finns follows. It is affectionate self-parody.

Sarcastically, when something trivially Finnish happens, a Finn appearing in a film, a Finnish word in a crossword.

It is also one of Finland's official emojis, which tells you how established the joke is.

torilla tavataan after a win, and before one

  • Suomi voitti. Torilla tavataan! Finland won. See you at the market square! The original use. A national win, and the phrase is the celebration.
  • Torilla tavataan, jos tää menee läpi. Market square, if this goes through. Said about something that has not happened yet, which is half of the fun.
torilla tavataan - the same Kauppatori crowd from further back, national team jerseys and flags packed across the cobbles in front of the old market hall
Said before the game. Then everyone actually turns up.

Taking torilla tavataan literally, and the shape it usually comes in

  • Ei tartte mennä torille oikeesti. You don't actually have to go to the square. Explaining the phrase to somebody who took it literally.
  • Jos Suomi voittaa tän, niin torilla tavataan. If Finland win this one, then it's the market square. Before the result, with the condition attached. The commonest shape online.

torilla tavataan in a conversation

Näitsä sen maalin?
Näin. Torilla tavataan!
Ollaanks me menossa oikeesti?
Ei. Se on vaan sanonta.

The mistake everyone makes with torilla tavataan

Reading it as a real invitation. Nobody is going anywhere; the phrase does the celebrating.

Missing that it is the passive. Torilla tavataan is the same grammar as mennään - Finnish proposes to a group without naming who.

torilla tavataan used sarcastically, and the short form

  • Suomalainen sana ristikossa. Torilla tavataan. A Finnish word in a crossword. See you at the square. The sarcastic use, for something trivially Finnish spotted abroad.
  • Torille! To the square! The short form, which is what actually gets shouted.

Questions people ask about torilla tavataan

What does torilla tavataan mean?

See you at the market square. It is what Finns say when the country wins something.

Where does the phrase come from?

From ice hockey celebrations, where crowds gather at the central market square after a championship. The team slogan tavataan torilla flipped into the version people say now.

Do Finns actually go to the square?

Sometimes, after a real national win. Most of the time the phrase is the celebration and nobody moves.

Why does it appear under random posts about Finland?

It became an online in-joke: any sighting of Finland abroad draws a pile of Finns posting it. It is affectionate self-parody.

What is the tori?

The central market square, which every Finnish town has. In Helsinki it is the Kauppatori by the harbour.

Is torilla tavataan a bad word?

Safe. It is a joke Finns make about themselves.

mennään - two friends standing up from a café table at the same moment, one already pulling a coat on, melting snow outside the window
mennään written menemme "Let's go" and "we go" are the same word, and your textbook taught neither
sisu - a woman in a reflective work jacket pushing a bicycle up a slushy hill into driving sleet, a plain Finnish apartment block behind her
sisu The noun is the export. Finns reach for a different form of it
kippis - two women touching beer glasses across a table on a Finnish summer terrace, a lake and birches behind them in the late evening light
kippis The glass goes over your shoulder before the shot goes down
jokamiehenoikeus - a woman picking berries into a bucket in an open Finnish forest with no fence or house in sight
jokamiehenoikeus You may walk across someone's forest, and pick what grows there

Sources for torilla tavataan

  1. Torilla tavataan: where Finns meet when the country triumphs thisisFINLAND, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland - The state's own account of the phrase, its ice hockey origin, and what happens at the square.
  2. Torilla tavataan - Finland's official emoji thisisFINLAND, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland - The phrase as one of Finland's sixty official emojis, which is a measure of how established it is.
  3. VISK § 802 - Mennäänks meille, jooko, kai mä voin tulla Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - The passive-as-proposal construction the phrase is built on.
  4. Finland emojis thisisFINLAND, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland - The full emoji set and what the state chose to explain about itself.
  5. Kielitoimiston sanakirja: tori, tavata Kotimaisten kielten keskus
torilla tavataan - two people at the Helsinki waterfront railing with takeaway coffees, looking at a phone, the cathedral and a ferry across the water behind them
The other ninety-nine per cent of the year, on the same shoreline.

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