Idioms of the World – Finland

Idioms are awesome.

Yes, we said it. They are such a big part of our culture, they are fun and creative and descriptive. We all use them all the time, sometimes without even knowing they are idioms!

A really interesting and hilarious activity is to “translate” idioms from one language to another. We will discover that the meaning exists in most cultures, but the sentence or phrase is completely different and nonsensical.

We will be sharing 10 idioms from 10 countries, illustrated by the artist Marcus Oakly.

Today we start in Finland.

Idiom – Päästää sammakko suusta
Meaning – To say the wrong thing
English idiom – To put your foot in it

Finnish idioms have a lovely tone to them, often referencing Mother Nature and their homeland. Having “rye in your wrists” means to be physically strong, for instance, while “own land strawberry, other land blueberry” reflects Finns’ love for the motherland. “Letting a frog out of your mouth” means to say the wrong thing, which makes sense, as spitting a frog at someone is almost always the wrong thing to do.

Thanks Hotel Club, for sharing these images! And if you’d like to see all the posts in this series, click here.