Our third meeting happened about two weeks ago, where it was a Finnish-themed evening spent at Emilia’s apartment. Our Finnish friends prepared some typical Finnish food for us – lihapullat ja perunamuusi (meatballs & mashed potatoes), puolukkahillo (lingonberry jam) homemade by Emilia’s mum, Karjalanpiirakka (Karelian pies), munavoi (egg butter) and also munkki (special doughnut). Not to forget, we also had Salmari (salmiakki vodka) and made toast in Finnish. “Kippis!”
Having lived in Finland for 2 years, I am very familiar with the Finnish food introduced to us. Yet they were so delicious that I had a second helping and so did our other non-Finnish friends.
We initially started off the night with talking about Finnish culture and listened to songs from Finnish artistes like Haloo Helsinki and Antti Tuisku (I recalled his hit song “Peto on Irti” which was played over and over again, everywhere earlier this year.) Now he has another dance song called “Keinutaan” (“let’s swing”).
Later on, Paola and Sofia taught us Spanish pronunciation with a guide which they have prepared earlier for us. Even though I have had some lessons about pronunciation before, I still sometimes forget that “g” is pronounced similarly to “h” when it is not in “gue” or “gui” form. I have also learnt that “ü” in a word means that I have to pronounce it aloud as well. E.g. “gue” has 2 sounds (“g” and “e”) whereas “güe” has 3 sounds (“g”, “u” and “e” )
Also, we had some fun learning tongue twisters in Spanish:
Si yo como cómo como,
y tú comes cómo comes
¿Cómo comes cómo como,
si yo como cómo como?
In between the lessons, we were told about “Kuusi palaa” a.k.a the wonders of Finnish language, which I am familiar with, ever since I first started learning Finnish in the 1st year of my studies. Behold the power of Finnish language:
Image from Geocaching
We did not manage to play Afrikan Tähti and watch some Finnish TV series as planned, which is still alright, as we can do it in the coming meetings. Big thanks to the girls – Ani, Jenna, Venla and Emilia – for hosting our first Finnish evening and also to our teachers, Sofia and Ani. Looking forward to our next meeting again to practice some simple sentences in Spanish and Finnish.
Blog post by: Chrystal Giam, 13Media
Edited (11/11/2015): This is the third meeting, as we have had first meeting in Coffee House to discuss our plans and the second meeting was Mexican Independence celebration night.
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