Our last meeting was in IKEA. Maris had to work but Neea wanted to go to IKEA because she is moving to a new flat so we decided to go there together and learn some new vocabulary in IKEA.

We met at TAMK and then we went by bus to Neea´s home. It´s funny because the day before I had a Finnish Society and Culture class where they told us that finnish people never invite others to their home. She showed me her house, with the typical sauna and also her cutes dogs. She also showed me the film area where we will go someday to watch a Finnish or Spanish film.  After this we went by car to IKEA  and she bought the things she needed at the same time we learn some new words:

Mikä tämä on suomeksi? How do you say this in Finnish?

Ostos karry. Shopping trolly.

Paljonko tämä maksaa? How much does it cost?

Uutuus. Something new.

Lautanen. Plate.

Lusikka. Spoon.

Haatukka. Fork.

Veitsi. Knife.

Lasi. Glass.

Muki. Cup

Kylpyhuone. Bathroom.

Roskakori. Bin.

Peitto. Quilt.

Tyyny. Pillow.

Aluslakana. Sheet.

Kukkaruukku.  Flower pot. (Kukka. Flower)

Kenkälusikka. Shoehorn.

Kynttilä. Candle.

Käsipyyhe. Hand tower.

Ulos. Exit.

Kassat. Checker.

The day was really fun, and we also learn, by guessing how to write the words, that Spanish words never have the letter K, always C, while in Finnish it´s the opposite thing, in fact almost every word has the letter K. Finland seems to love that letter!

Hi! My name is Vera and I have lived in Tampere little over a year now. I’m studying hospitality and management.  I’m part of group of three girls. Our squad  consist of 2 Finns and 1 Spanish.

Our first meeting with Viivi and Irene was 16.9 at Tamperes central library. (I had problem with this blog, I’m lazy and kind of forgot to write.) First I was little bit of worried. What if we don’t get along or meetings are awkward. But we actually had really nice time! Viivi and I are classmates so for me starting the conversation was easier. We made a plan and I’m looking forward our meetings.  🙂

We have the second meeting yesterday(29.09), we all had good time with each other. We visited the Moomin museum in afternoon. At 3:00 pm we entered the museum, and started our interesting trip. Moomin museum is so dreamlike and beautiful,  the whole exhibitions made us so peaceful and enjoyable. We talked a great deal of knowledge about Moomin with each other and we listened some stories about Moomin.

We went to the workshop and drew some Moomin’s pictures after visiting , they were all so funny.

This meeting made us feel so relaxed, and we can talk everything, just were like friends. I think this course not only let students  learn other language, but also give us a chance to make friends with others and know some culture and society about Tampere and partner’s country.

Our fourth meeting was at café Kaffila, where we first of all repeated the numbers in Spanish and German again.  After this we talked about the “Oktoberfest” which is a traditional german fest and as a matter of fact in Tampere is kind of a “Oktoberfest” in the beginning of October and we decided to go there on our next meeting with some other Each one Teach one groups. So that Diego and Nedas can have a real german experience. Further we started with the lecture. In this lesson we learned about how to describe the look of a person and about feelings.
We also talked about typical food from our countries and what Diego and Nedas would like to taste.

I am looking forward to our next meeting at the “Oktoberfest”.

Today was our Each One Teach One -groups first meeting. We met in a Wayne’s Coffee. First I stressed a bit about my English skills, because my vocabulary isn’t very wide. But when I met Gabriela and Getuar, the feeling was very comfort. Getuar can speak also finnish so he helped me if I didn’t find some word.

Gabriela was from Uruguay and that was amazing, because I was exchange student in Argentina last spring. I travelled to Uruguay and with Gabriela we had many common things to talk about South-Americas culture.

Gabriela started to teach spanish language to me and Getuar. I knew something basic things about Spanish because of my time in Argentina, but of course I am an beginner like Getuar. I understood how much I have forgotten for the spanish language, but spanish words returned fast to my mind.

We learned basic things in spanish like how to introduce yourself and how to say hello, sorry, thank you and so on. We tried to study verbs, but we think that’s too difficult thing to learn first. Maybe in next meeting we start to study easy words. For example weekdays or numbers.

In any case it was very nice to meet my Each One Teach One -group and I’m looking forward to meet they soon again!

– Janica 🙂

Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I had my first meeting with my Each One teach One group; the reason why we didn’t have before it’s because I was on holiday in Italy for a while and even if we planned to do a video-meeting during that period, it wasn’t really possible due to the fact that I was travelling around the Italian Alps and the internet connection could be jerky up there!

Anyway, my group is formed by myself, obviously, Camille and Audrey; I’m going to teach Italian to them and they will teach me French.

We met in front of the bar Public Corner in Keskustori, since we were planning to take something to drink there and the girls were planning to seat outside to enjoy the super-warm Finnish autumn! The only problem was that the outside terrace of this bar was already gone so we moved to the Café inside the Sokos’ building.

We started talking about random things like school etc. and after we finished to drink we moved to the supermarket in the basement of Sokos.

There we started to learn something new by searching for differences and similarities in between our languages and since they are really close to each other, I think that “learning process” will be downhill!

Here in the table below there are some of the words that we learned during this meeting and after that we realised that probably for us, the most weird language is English, because why do you have to call it Pineapple when even in Finland they call it Ananas? …it doesn’t even look like an apple!

As a reflection on the outcome of the first meeting, I had with Camille and Audrey, I can say that it was kind of fun and really chill but at the same time, even if this is just the beginning, I got to know how really close our languages are; I even realised that some words in my home-city dialect sounds or are also written like they do in French which it’s a bit weird but at the same time really nice and it probably will make the whole process a lot easier that  it already is.

For the next meeting we will probably make some Italian food, at my place since even my girlfriend is learning Italian and so sometimes I’ll have to jump between four languages: English, French, Italian and Finnish! …Piece of cake!

This time we went to a Chinese Store to buy some food. Because our next meeting is going to be a Chinese Dinner. This was also a good possibility to talk about the difference in food culture.

Our Chinese Food Expert of course knows where to buy the best Chinese Food in town, so we went there and start looking for some delicious Food.

The picture on the left shows our expert how he tries to find some good products for us.

And this is our Selection.

Now we are ready to cook together and also to taste our cooking results.
There we will surely talk more about the eating habits of every country.

English                       Chinese                        Spanish                                   German

Soy sauce                 sheng chon                    Salsa de soja                          Salsa Soße
meat                           rou                                     carne                                         Fleisch
pepper                       hujiao                               Pimiento                                  Pfeffer
egg plant                   qie zi                                 Berenjena                                Aubergine
garlic                           suan                                  Ajo                                              Knoblauch
chili                              lajiao                                Chili                                            Chillischoten
noodles                      mian                                 noodles                                     Nudeln
vegetable                   cai                                     Verduras                                   Gemüse
rice cracker               mi guo                             Tortitas de arroz                    Reiswaffeln
salt                               yan                                    sol                                                Salz
sugar                           tang                                  azucar                                         Zucker

We are ready for the dinner. Looking forward to our next meeting. 🙂