12 Finnish Phrases That You Simply Can´t Live Without

Finns have reputation for having a very dark sense of humour. Here are some of my favourite Finnish expressions. I´ll let you decide whether our humour is dark or not but let me tell you, using this expression can be very satisfying. (Warning. This post includes strong language).

1. We don´t tell someone to ”go away”. We tell them to ”ski into a spruce tree” (suksi kuuseen).

2. Finns don´t say ”that sounds like Greek to me”. To us, It “sounds like Hebrew” (täyttä hepreaa).

3. This is one of my favourites and I often use it when I hang out with my girlfriends. We don´t say ”let´s go”. Instead we say ”let´s go cows, bull has a boner” (mennään lehmät, sonnilla seisoo).

4. When I get fed up with everything I don´t say ”fuck this”. I´ll say ”spring festival of cunts” (vitttujen kevätjuhla).

5. Finns don´t get cranky. They behave like a ”bear shot in the ass” (perseeseen ammuttu karhu).

6. Be careful if someone tells you ”they want to take you behind the sauna” (viedä saunan taakse). It means they want to kill you.

7. We don´t talk about forsaken places. For us remote places are ”behind god´s back” (jumalan selän takana).

8. When someone is dumb and they don´t have it all together, what they don´t have is “all the moomins in the valley” (ei ole kaikki muumit laaksossa).

9. We don´t ”get hurry”. We run ”using our head as the third foot” (juosta pää kolmantena jalkana).

10. We don´t encourage others (or ourselves) to drink. We simply say ”drop won´t kill you and you can´t drown in a bucket (ei tippa tapa, eikä ämpäriin huku).

11. Shia La Beauf, instead of saying ”just do it” maybe you could say ”forward, said grandma in the snow” (eteenpäin sanoi mummo lumessa) or would that be Shia in the snow?

12. It´s not Santa Clause who visits us on Christmas. Instead, presents are brought by Christmas Goat (joulupukki) and it probably refers to an old pagan fertility god. That´s Finland for you.

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