In 2017 Finland will celebrate 100 years of independence -  itsenäisyys . Finland's Independence Day , Itsenäisyyspäivä , is 6th December . Like other Finnish schools, the Finnish School in Manchester will be joining in, and we have a number of ideas and projects being conjured up. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for more news :) So, what do you think of this as a birthday present? The picture, right, is grabbed from Google Maps. Doesn't seem like much to get excited about, does it? It shows a small part of the border between Norway and Finland; there is a proposal in Norway to move it a few metres further north and therefore gift Finland a fraction of a square kilometre of barren mountainside. Which is a rather downbeat way of putting it. However, on that border is Finland's highest point, at 1,324m above sea level, and a while ago, an imaginative Norwegian surveyor realised that a minor border adjustment would put the peak of  Halditsohkka inside Finland. You can read...

Picture dictionaries! Although a dictionary is an essential purchase for a language learner, there's a lot to be said for getting a picture dictionary as well, so here are some thoughts about that, with special regard to what's available in Finnish. 1. Tuhat sanaa suomeksi (A Thousand Words in Finnish) pub. Kustannusosakeyhtiö Nemo, 2012 This seems to be a licensed version of the well known and very successful Usborne 'thousand words' series, so the words and scenes are generic ie. not specific to Finland. But it's very well done and ranges over most of the themes and categories you could want, even though the artwork is obviously angled more towards younger learners. You can visit the www.nemokustannus.fi/tuhatsanaa website and listen to the words spoken by a native speaker. Picture dictionaries can't list the sheer number of words standard dictionaries of equivalent size can, but they have other virtues, and also they can still feature a vocabulary s...

While that title makes you wonder why we haven't seen as much Finnish-style bloody murder on our television screens as from the rest of the Nordic countries - come on Finland, you can do this in your sleep! - you might like to visit this unusual exhibition at the Amos Anderson Art Museum if you're in Helsinki sometime in 2016. This is the cover of the little book you're given when you enter the exhibition. From the back cover: Sumuisen ja kostean marraskuun lopulla löytyy Kaivopuiston rannasta hyisen meren syleilystä nuoren naisen ruumis... In the final days of a damp, misty November, the body of a young woman is found in the icy embrace of the waters off Kaivopuisto Park...   The book is slim and anyway divided between Finnish, Swedish and English texts, and is easy enough to follow while you progress at normal speed through the exhibition. It's a decent read, nicely written by Susanna Luojus. There are a couple of spookily atmospheric 'installations'...

It doesn't take long for a new visitor to Finland to discover salmiakki. That stuff which looks like licorice but with a really strange taste. Watch someone eating a bit for the first time: you may see some dramatic facial expressions, and hear strong vocal reactions such as 'What is that ?!?' The fact is, not all Finns like it. Shocking, but true. While some foreigners - prepare to be shocked again - take an immediate liking to it. And even though it's found elsewhere, in places like Sweden, there's no doubt it's very characteristic of Finland. If you somehow wandered into our school and didn't know it was the Finnish School, you'd spot a hefty clue in the fact that a lot of the sweets on sale in our shop are salmiakki in one form or another. Salmiakki itself is ammonium chloride, which sounds like sodium chloride, and it would, because it is another salt. Hence it's often called salty licorice. I've been caught out by that in the past. Once...