In English it’s normal to say “I love” for many things you consider super enjoyable (food, music, cats etc.) or of people, but in Finnish “minä rakastan” is quite exclusively for your romantic partner. I hear it more commonly used sarcastically (”Oh I just LOVE it when people don’t clean after themselves”) than in a serious context, and even then it’s very rare.
And even when we do want to say “I love/minä rakastan” it’s ridiculously awkward and just sounds wrong. It is more likely to say “you are loved/olet rakas” because that just sounds better and can be used by friends and family too.
But none of this actually tells us why they do not say “I love you” nor what they say instead.
we literally don’t say it because we don’t like the way it sounds in Finnish, and either we don’t say it at all or use the English version.
It’s kind of difficult to explain. Like, the words for “I love you” are so uncomfortably formal, in a sense. It doesn’t roll out of the mouth in the slightest.
Linguistics isn’t my forté, but I’ll try to expand on this;
Words really do have more meaning and weight in Finnishthan they do in English. Finnish words are precise to another level. You mean exactly what you say. There are no take-backs.
I am not kidding. There are synonyms, but even synonyms come with heavy connotation on what the tone of a word is. There are words that come with decades worth of baggage for you to even begin to understand how deeply ingrained their meanings are. We are talking almost N-word levels of ingrained meaning and connotation. When a newspaper journalist makes a mistake and tries to do a take-back, you could never sound as fake is it sounds to a Finnish speaker. You know exactly what you said and meant.
Though we often say that “Finnish is spoken as it is written”, we mean pronunciation. No one speaks written Finnish. Why? Because written Finnish is extremely formal and rigid.
There are vast differences between the spoken and written variants of Finnish. Written Finnish is the standardized, default written format of Finnish. Most published books, like those in school and in shelves are written in that format. That way every Finnish-speaker can understand, even though most dialects can be understood by everyone regardless. It’s the one we are taught in school.
Written language was sort of developed separately from the spoken language, and that shows. It doesn’t quite behave like the spoken language. Spoken Finnish often drops entire words, syllables, vowels, you name it. Meaning and direction of conversation is provided by the speaker and what is spoken, many things can be left unsaid. That’s partly why Finnish personal pronouns are genderless. Since Finnish is an agglutinative language, words bend tremendously and allow for new, understandable words to be created on whim. A lot of dialects affect consonants and vowels, yet it still remains perfectly understandable. Figure that one out.
The way written Finnish behaves sounds incredibly odd in many cases. Written Finnish is clunky. Personal pronouns sound out of place when following the proper format. It doesn’t allow for letters or words to drop. The order of words also seems very stiff when compared to the spoken language. It has some inconsistencies. Very business-y. Because of that, it’s usage is strictly on non-spoken formats. Hence it’s specifically called the written Finnish. No one talks written Finnish.
To perhaps illustrate how rigid written Finnish is, news are read either in local dialect or in plain Finnish (selkosuomi). It’s our language’s equivalent of plain English. It’s on the formal end, but you can actually speak it and not sound like an alien invader. Trust me, we’ll know.
The best way to compare this is if an English-speaking native heard Middle-English. That is how different the tones and verbs behave and sound between spoken and written Finnish.
No one talks like that. I cannot re-iterate that enough. It’s very grating to the ears. Personally, I find Finnish audio-books unpleasant to listen to for that same reason written Finnish is not spoken.
So now that you know these two basic concepts of Finnish language, I can explain why we don’t say “I love you”.
Saying “I love you” in Finnish sounds weird, because “Minä rakastan sinua” is written Finnish.
No one speaks written Finnish.
It’s not meant to be said.
Therefore, the words for “I love you” are never spoken in that particular format.
Even though that is the literal translation, it sounds like “It is I that loves you”. The nearest you might hear is where you drop the “I” from “I love you”, which, actually, still translates to “I love you”, because of how Finnish verbs and conjugation works. “Rakastan sinua” instead of “Minä rakastan sinua” sounds better, because it drops the formal “I”, bringing it a little closer to a spoken format. The word “you”, “sinua” is still in it’s formal version here, but since that is something you cannot exclude, you have to say “Rakastan sinua” or resort to a spoken variant of “you”, so it becomes “Rakastan sua”. To which one would reply the equivalent of “So do I” or ”I too (love) you” “Minäkin (rakastan) sinua”, where the word “love” can be dropped out because the meaning is carried from the previous sentence.
However, It’s still rarer to use.
Instead of “I love you”, we usually say that “You are loved” or “you are dear (to my heart)”, “olet rakas”, because that’s how our language and culture works.
English does not have words for “rakas” that could bring the heart-felt implications like Finnish does. Connotation is everything. Closest you can translate to is “dear” but it’s a very hollow in comparison to “rakas”. It comes with heavy romantic, endearing and sickly sweet connotations. That’s why it’s often supplemented with additional words if you don’t mean it as a declaration of undying romantic love. But the heaviness still remains.
Like, if a friend calls me “rakas ystävä”, “a dear/loved friend”, that is a huge fucking deal. The implications of that level of endearment means that it’s ride or die.
By all means, when a Finnish person says that they love you, it means a hell of a lot more than it does in English. Personally, I find the heaviness of those words intimidating, in a sense.
It’s like a declaration of war but with roses and cuddles.
Finnish is like a heavy, carved boulder. You move it only with precise intention. English is like conveniently small pebbles, easy to throw around all willy-nilly. Effortless. You can’t take “I love you” back, but it sounds lighter and gets the meaning across. Me saying that in Finnish takes years of careful planning, support structures, proper tones and a future intent. It’s almost more accurate to say that in Finnish, you carve a whole new boulder for every single person you say it to. Hence, you usually don’t say it.
It’s also a cultural thing. I’m under the impression that Japanese words and meanings for “I love you” are also very complex for English speakers, due to linguistic and cultural differences.
There are many ways to tell someone that you love, care and cherish them, ranging from platonic to romantic, we just don’t say it in the same clear-cut format as English speakers do.
And to us, love is more about “show, don’t tell.” -R
You can get to the point where you can express yourself in a language by learning basic grammar and just 200 words.
My test for being able to express myself is: Can I keep a diary in this language? Can I talk about what I did today and my opinions on just about any subject?
Too often, people who have been learning a language for months or even years say “no.” However, in my experience, it’s possible after learning just basic grammar and the 200 most useful words. If you wanted to go fast and learn 20 words a day (the default rate of Anki), then you could learn 200 words in a week and a half. (In my experience, learning basic grammar doesn’t take as long as learning the words, so the total time could be three weeks. However, I didn’t teach myself my first foreign language, so I can’t speak to that case — if you’re teaching yourself your first, kudos, and let me know how long the grammar takes!)
The key is that you have to learn the right 200 words. When I was teaching myself languages before, I could never find a good answer to the question: What words should I learn first? If you use Duolingo, they’ll start by teaching you words like “apple”, which aren’t very useful. I spent a lot of time writing and talking in order to determine which 200 words would let you express the most. I think I finally got it. But don’t take my word for it — see this demonstration.
I personally tested this method out with Esperanto and French and I’m now able to keep a diary in both languages, writing about anything that happened in my day and any thought that crosses my mind.
To be clear: 200 words won’t make you fluent, but they’ll allow you to express yourself, and it’s a lot easier to keep improving from there. Feel free to adapt the method based on what works for you. Here are the steps:
If your language uses a non-Latin alphabet, learn the alphabet.
Practice writing (This method is introvert friendly! You don’t have to talk to strangers if you don’t want to. But at this stage you can also practice by speaking, if you prefer.)
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Also, please send me your feedback! I’d love to know if this works for you or if it doesn’t. I welcome all comments, criticism, and suggestions for improvement. And if you think this guide could help other people, please consider reblogging it. 🙂
Additional notes:
To be able to express yourself with 200 words, you’ll need to be able to rephrase things: e.g. “she comforted him” = “she caused that he felt better”. Even if it’s hard for you to rephrase things this way, the 200 basic words are a great starting vocabulary list.
This is the order in which I usually learn an alphabetic language: basic writing and speaking, reading, listening, advanced writing and speaking. Being able to express yourself doesn’t mean that you’ll immediately be able to listen to the language and understand it, because native speakers may speak fast and use a wider vocabulary (though hopefully they’ll slow down and simplify for you in a conversation). But it’s a lot easier to keep improving from a point where you have basic writing and speaking skills than from one where you don’t.
Everyone: To learn a language you need to speak to people who speak the language!
Me, autistic, anxious, dysphoric about my voice, deathly afraid of humans and struggles to hold a conversation in my fucking native language and needs subtitles for everything: Fuck
Not to derail the point of this post, but as a former language teacher– if you want to learn a new language but can’t actually talk to people who speak the language (or even if you can but just want to give yourself an edge), the best thing to do is expose yourself to authentic input in the target language. This means listening to/ watching/ reading media made for native speakers of the language. Materials designed for language learners are easier to process, but they can also be miles away from how the language is actually used. Watch tv, listen to music, read news articles. even if you’re just engaging with children’s media in the target language, or you’re watching with subtitles, you’re using the language in the same way that native speakers do, and that’s almost as good (and oftentimes way more accessible) than talking with native speakers.
the thing you need to realize about localization is that japanese and english are such vastly different languages that a straight translation is always going to be worse than the original script. nuance is going to be lost and, if you give a shit about your job, you should fill the gaps left with equivalent nuance in english. take ff6, my personal favorite localization of all time: in the original japanese cefca was memorable primarily for his manic, childish speaking style – but since english speaking styles arent nearly as expressive, woolsey adapted that by making the localized english kefka much more prone to making outright jokes. cefca/kefka is beloved in both regions as a result – hell, hes even more popular here
yes this
a literal translation is an inaccurate translation.
localization’s job is to create a meaningful experience for a different audience which has a different language and different culture. they translate ideas and concepts, not words and sentences. often this means choosing new ideas that will be more meaningful and contribute to the experience more for a different audience.
There was an example during late Tokugawa period in Japan where the translator translated, "Я люблю Вас” (I love you), to “I could die for you,” while translating
Ася, (
Asya) a novel by Ivan Turgenev. This was because a woman saying, “I love you,” to a man was considered a very hard thing to do in Japanese society.
In a more well-known example,
Natsume Soseki, a great writer who wrote, I am a Cat, had his students translate “I love you,” to “the moon is beautiful [because of] having you beside tonight,” because Japanese men would not say such strong emotions right away. He said that it would be weird and Japanese men would have more elegance.
Both of these are great examples of localization that wasn’t a straight up translation and both of these are valid. I feel like a lot of people forget the nuances in language and culture and how damn hard a translator’s job is and how knowledgeable the person has to be about both cultures. [x]
Important stuff about translation!
Note that you can apply this to your own translations even if they aren’t big pieces of literature or something. Don’t feel bad about not translating word for word. An everyday sentence may sound odd translated literally – it’s okay to edit a little bit so it feels right!
Oh my god, I’m about to go on a ramble, I’m sorry, I can’t help it, the inner translation nerd is coming out. I’m so sorry. The thing is–there is actually no such thing as an accurate translation.
It’s literally an impossible endeavor. Word for word doesn’t cut it. Sense for sense doesn’t cut it, because then you’re potentially missing cool stuff like context and nuance and rhyme and humor. Even localization doesn’t really cut it, because that means you’re prioritizing the audience over the author, and you’re missing out on the original context, and the possibility of bringing something new and exciting to your host language. Foreignization, which aims to replicate the rhythms of the original language, or to use terminology that will be unfamiliar to the target culture–(for example: the first few American-published Harry Potter books domesticated the English, and traded “trousers” for “pants”, and “Mom” for “Mum”. Later on they stopped, and let the American children view such foreignizing words as “snog” and “porridge.”)–also doesn’t cut it, because you risk alienating the target readers, or obscuring meaning.
Another cool example is Dante, and the words written above the gates of hell: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
In the original Italian, that’s Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate. Speranza, like most nouns in latinate languages, has a gender: la. Hope, in Italian, is gendered female. Abandon hope, who is female. Abandon hope, who is a woman. When the original Dante enters hell, searching for Beatrice, he is doomed, subtly, from the start. That’s beautiful, subtle, the kind of delicate poetic move literature nerds gorge themselves on, and you can’t keep it in English. Literally, how do you preserve it? We don’t have a gendered hope. It doesn’t work, can’t work. So how do you compensate? Can you sneak in a reference to Beatrice in a different line? Or do you chalk her up as a loss and move onto the next problem?
You’re always going to miss something–the cool part is that, knowing you’re going to fail, you get to decide how to fail. Ortega y Gasset called this The Misery and Splendor of Translation. Basically, translation is impossible–so why not make it a beautiful failure?
My point is that literary translation is creative writing, full of as many creative decisions as any original poem or short story. It has more limitations, rules, and structures to consider, for sure–but sometimes the best artistic decision is going to be the one that breaks the rules.
My favorite breakdown of this is Le Ton Beau De Marot, a beautiful brick of a translator’s joke, in which the author tries over and over again to create a “perfect” translation of “A une Damoyselle Malade”, an itsy bitsy poem Clement Marot dashed off to his patron’s daughter, who was sick, in 1537.
This is the poem:
Ma mignonne, Je vous donne Le bon jour; Le séjour C’est prison. Guérison Recouvrez, Puis ouvrez Votre porte Et qu’on sorte Vitement, Car Clément Le vous mande. Va, friande De ta bouche, Qui se couche En danger Pour manger Confitures; Si tu dures Trop malade, Couleur fade Tu prendras, Et perdras L’embonpoint. Dieu te doint Santé bonne, Ma mignonne.
Seems simple enough, right? But it’s got a huge host of challenges: the rhyme, the tone, the archaic language (if you’re translating something old, do you want it to sound old in the target language, too? or are you translating not just across language, but across time?)
Le Ton Beau De Marot is a monster of a book that compiles all of Hofstader’s “failed” translations of Ma Mignonne, as well as the “failed” translations of his friends, and his students, and hundreds of strangers who were given the translation challenge (which you can play here, should you like!)
The end result is a hilarious archive of Sweet Damosels, Malingering Ladies, Chickadees, Fairest Friends, and Cutie Pies. It’s the clearest, funniest, best example of what I think is true of all literary translations: that they’re a thing you make up, not a thing you discover. There is no magic bridge between languages, or magic window, or magic vessel to pour the poem from one language to another–translation is always subjective, it’s always individual, it’s always inaccurate, it’s always a failure.
It’s always, in other words, art.
Which, as a translator, I find incredibly reassuring! You’re definitely, one hundred percent absolutely, gonna fuck up. Which means you can’t fuck up. You can take risks! You can experiment! You can do cool stuff like bilingual translations, or footnote translations! You write your own code of honor, your own rules that your translations will hold inviolable, and fuck it if that code doesn’t match everyone else’s*. The translations they hold inviolable are also flawed, are failures at the core, from the King James Bible right on down to No Fear Shakespeare. So have fun! It’s all in your hands, miseries and splendors both.
As a translator i think the best thing to do when translating something that has no equivalent in culture is to stay as true to the text as possible. It depends on the kind of audience you have, though, but to stay on the example of the “i love you” thing: If that were me, I’d have kept it be “I love you” in Japanese, because even if a Japanese person wouldnt say this, the audience knows they aren’t reading a story that takes place in Japan. It gives them insight into another culture. I find it sad that this insight is lost in some translations. And when some part of the intention is going to be lost in translation/ you know the audience won’t understand a translation that is too straight, nothing is keeping you from adding a translator’s note.
2. an issue that is not one’s own responsibility to resolve
pl. prumngles
adj. prumnglish
“Despite her best efforts, she was always neck deep in a new prumngle.” “Their relationship was defined by prumnglish arguments.” “The discussion had devolved into foisting prumngles upon each other.”
contrary to popular belief, someone who is fluent in their second language (L2) is unlikely to slip into their first language (L1) in these circumstances:
if someone just said something to them in L2 (this a big unconscious cue, and you’d be really unlikely to respond in L1 right after that)
when swearing in the middle of a sentence (e.g. “oh merde, i forgot my keys!”)
during sex
when speaking to someone they normally speak to in L2
it is slightly more common in these circumstances:
swearing, as long it’s not part of a sentence (e.g. they might just mutter “merde” if they forgot their keys)
if they’re surprised (especially if falling/tripping or experiencing sudden pain!)
when speaking to someone they normally speak to in L1
in their sleep or talking to themselves
when very disoriented, such as when concussed or on certain drugs
that being said, it is very common for people to intentionally use their first language in front of people who don’t speak it for a variety of reasons (they might use a short expression they only know in L1, call their partner pet names, dirty talk during sex because their partner finds it attractive) – but this is on purpose!
also this doesn’t account for people who grew up in an environment where people often mix multiple languages in their speech (e.g. spanglish or franglais) – in that case, they may accidentally drop an L1 swear into an L2 sentence, though they’ll still generally stick to L2 when speaking to people who only speak that language
queerhomestuck 