"Graavikirjolohifilee" was the word on the package of what pretty much looked like smoked salmon. I got home, prepared my salad, yummy, and... wait... oh... what is that? It did not taste like smoked salmon, ladies and gents. It actually seemed to be a VERY uncooked/unsmoked version of it. But I am a person that doesn't waste money or food, so I just ate it. It was fine, I am alive, no drama.
But after eating that fish, tough, I got curious and wrote "graavikirjolohifilee" on Google Translate. The translation was "graavikirjolohifilee" :-|. Thank you very much, Google. Thank you very much, Finnish language. That's it. It is impossible to understand this idiom, because it makes absolutely no sense. Until now I thought Google knew everything.
Yesterday I saw a beautiful juice box, full of pictures of raspberries, my favourites, and I understood it had less than 10 kcal for every 100 g. Amazing! I bought it. Got home, thirsty, put it on a glass and it was disgusting. It was a raspberry soup. Now tell me: why would someone invent a raspberry soup? Soup is salty, Fins, come on! With chicken and stuff...
Going to the supermarket here in a challenge. At first I was translating everything on my phone, but it is so annoying. So I just started looking at the pictures, which was, obviously, a very stupid decision. The other day I bought a Jalostaja soup [a normal not fruity one] in a can, which is very popular here. The instructions were in Finnish so I just put it in a pan and ate it. It was very good but later I found out I should have mixed it with water.
Okay, so let's only eat frozen food, solution. Wrong! You can't read the instructions! Imagine yourself starving and typing EVERYTHING to translate online. It's mental. You just recognize the number and put in the microwave. Then use your experience to decide if you have to pierce the plastic or not.
I have been living in Finland for four weeks already and I still don't know the name of my street, because it's a huge word full of "Ks" and "Ts" and "Ys". I took one week to be able to buy a sparkling water without asking anyone and only God knows how many lozenges for sore throat I have bought thinking it was gum.
Besides being a completely different language, Fins also mix two or three or dozens of different words to create a new fantastic word. That's what happened to my salmon. Breaking the word "graavikirjolohifilee" in two (graavi kirjolohifilee ), I discovered that it means salted trout fillet. But if you separate it in three (graavi kirjolohi filee), you will know that I actually ate a salted RAINBOW trout fillet! Now, let's break it into four words (graavi kirjo lohi filee) and we have a spectrum of salted salmon fillet. Seriously, that's amazing.
Finnish is an infinite game in which you will always be a loser. It is so frustrating. Very often I feel like an illiterate. The good part of it is that the education here is the best so everybody speaks English. You can go anywhere, even small shops, and they will nicely speak English with you, at least in Helsinki.
I know I might be overreacting based on one month experience in Finland, maybe it is not that hard. I will stay here for a while and I really want to learn it, let's see how it goes. Right now, I just want to know I had for dinner: trout, salmon or rainbow?
