Saturday, October 18, 2008


"Klingons read my blog??!!
It's the World Wide Web, not the Inter Galatic Web, isn't it?
I'm so confused..."

All this went through my head this morning as I checked my blog stats that report on what other sites my readers are coming from and I came across this unfamiliar address that has been throwing lots of traffic my way: http://keskustelu.suomi24.fi/
And when I clicked on it, I read this:
Kaksikulttuurinen, mutta täysin länsimaalainen pari muutti Afrikkaan köyhään maahan ja asui siellä monia vuosia. Lapsiakin on. Nyt he tosin ovat jo muuttaneet takaisin Eurooppaan (jossa blogi saa jatkoa). Vaimo kirjoittaa perheen elämästä ja siitä, miten se kohtaa aivan erilaisen kulttuurin, joilloin perheestä tulee tavallaan kolmekultturinen.

Tosi mielenkiintoisia juttuja ja antavat näkökulmaa etenkin, jos suunnittelee muuttoa ulkomaille ja erilaisen kulttuurin keskelle tai jos kiinnostunut siitä, millaista afrikkalainen elämänmeno on. Sekä hyviä että huonoja puolia valoitetaan rehellisesti arki- ja juhlakokemusten kautta.

Kannattaa aloittaa vaikka sieltä blogin alkuajoilta


"I may not know much, but I know Klingon when I see it!", I thought to myself. And maybe in Next Generation everybody is all cozy and Best Friends Forever, but I remember back when they were the sworn enemies of the Federation. Curse them!

But of course, they are Finnish people, NOT Klingons. I figured that out from the little .fi at the end of the web address.
The Klingons use .ki, so they're pretty easy to confuse.

If it was Klingon, I'd probably have way better luck getting it translated. Babelfish doesn't even offer Finnish as an option. And when I finally found a site offering free Finnish to English, it gave me this:

Kaksikulttuurinen , only täysin länsimaalainen par migrate Africa köyhään maahan and asui there multiprocessing year. Lapsiakin is. Now they though ovat already muuttaneet back Europe ( where blogi may extension ). Wife print household elämästä and siitä , how it stricken clean otherwise culture joilloin perheestä tulee tavallaan kolmekultturinen. Ernest engrossing tale and allocating näkökulmaa especially , if suunnittelee migration abroad and otherwise culture in or if absorbed siitä millaista African elämänmeno is. Sekä much että wicked half-time valoitetaan squarely casual and juhlakokemusten via. Sponsor launch although there blogin alkuajoil

It didn't help much.

And though the phrases "ernest engrossing tale" and "squarely casual" are encouraging, "stricken clean" and "wicked half-time" have me worried.

Any Finnish speakers out there going to help me?

(Tuck? Are you reading this? Help!)

4 comments:

Ksam said...

GRRR!!! I'd just translated the whole thing out and my internet went out while the comment was loading and I lost it all!

Basically it just says that you are a bicultural family who moved to Africa and now you're back in Europe, and that you write interesting and honest stories about the positives & negatives of all three cultures.

La Framéricaine said...

Very cool, my dear! If you can get Finns to write about you in big long paragraphs, I think you've arrived, particularly if their doing some sort of cultural deconstruction on your life them thar hills!

Beth said...

Thank you SO much, Tuck! I THOUGHT it seemed like a nice, positive article and it's good to know that it is so.

And I have to admit that it IS pretty nifty to have Finnish fans!!

Momma Bee said...

Babelfish's translation of the recent French article your friend posted was almost as incomprehensible. "The booze is good, but the meat stinks!"