“Yes … no … no … yes …” I say, as the man behind the counter presents a variety of different condiments and sauces. He takes each potential option from its place off the shelf and holds it to the window for me to see. I give my answer, and he gets the next item. This place called ‘X Burger’ is hardly more than a van-sized shack on a parking lot, but a great place to get a meal if you are stuck on the Aalto campus at midnight. The man in the van selling burgers seems friendly enough, but something feels off. It might be that I am bent over double trying to look inside the much-too-low window to identify my potential options. It might be that the current weather is moderate snowstorm, and the list of condiments is unfathomably long. Or maybe the reason is that the vendor had just offered to put sliced pickles on my fries. On my walk back home, however, I realize it was none of these things. No, what struck me as odd was that I had just had my first interaction with a person who did not speak English since landing in Finland two months earlier.

The first few days after arriving here, I always started conversations with “Sorry, do you speak English?”. And I cannot state this enough: Do not do this. It is very difficult to get any sort of emotion to show on the face of a Finn, but this might just do it. That tiny flash of visible annoyance means that you messed up badly and it will haunt you for days. Instead, follow this simple guide when ordering food, asking for information, or purchasing something from a shop in Finland. The Finn will say some variation of ‘hei’, ‘terve’, or ‘moikka’. Answer with a happy ‘hello!’ and the conversation will proceed in perfect English. The only exception seems to be ordering food at X Burger, where you might have to resort to pointing at the menu, followed by an unending presentation of potential French fry supplements.

The Finns mastery of English is even more impressive considering that it is often their third language, after Finnish and Swedish. An average European such as myself speaking 2.5 languages (I know some Italian) can be humbled easily by a group of ten-year olds playing ball in the half-time break of a handball game. This typical, every-day situation happened to me a few weeks ago in the tiny, in-the-middle-of-nowhere village of Riihimäki, a good hour north of Helsinki. While I was warming up for the second half, a random kid yelled something at me, to which I had to answer an embarrassing ‘Sorry, I don’t speak Finnish’. I realized my mistake immediately: Since both the kid and I were here to play handball, I had most likely been addressed in Swedish, not Finnish. The fact that I could not even distinguish the two languages, combined with the kid laughing and replying, ‘no worries, mate!’ in perfect English did not help my confidence. It then got worse an hour later when retelling this interaction to one of my teammates. Apparently, not a small number of Finns, him included, grew up quadrilingually, on account of one parent being from a non-Finnish/Swedish/English-speaking country.

Back home with my burger, I open my Duolingo app with renewed motivation. While Duolingo certainly has its flaws, the bat-shit crazy green owl and general osmosis are currently my only methods of learning. I click on a newt section. This means new vocabulary, which is always fun. In my (extremely limited) experience, there are, in general, two types of Finnish words. First, words that have recently been imported from European neighbors, but with an ‘i‘ at the end to make them sound cute. Think kioski, or ketsuppi. Second, aliens. Since Finnish is part of the Finno-Ugrian language family, these are words that have nothing in common with anything a western European like myself would have ever heard. Some fun ones are kaupunki – city, ystävä – friend, or pöytä – table. This second category of words has a subcategory – those random sounds that happen to sound like words in a language you know, but with a completely different meaning, such as helppo – easy or talo – house. Speaking other languages now becomes a detriment: As an Italian, you might struggle with tuo – that, or uusi – new. And as a German, you will be disappointed to learn that ja means and, ei means no, and himmeli refers to a complex and opaque bureaucratic structure in a government institution. Overall, it nevertheless is a surprisingly fun language to learn, at least so far. As I have been told, however, this will change as soon as grammar is involved. Luckily, grammar lies beyond the capabilities of the devilish green owl.