On Thursday, 29 August, I finally found myself on the airport bus in Prague to catch a flight to Finland to attend the long-awaited conference English as a Lingua Nordica – Language in a Changing World or ELN24, an event co-organized by the Nordic Editors and Translators (NEaT) and the trade union Kieliasiantuntijat (Language Experts). It took me some time to learn this Finnish compound noun (lit: language matter knowers) – which seems logical to me, given its similarity to the German term Sachkundige I am familiar with. Thanks to Virve Juhola for the explanation!
There was a long run-up to this conference. I first began helping with the programme early this year, evaluating and editing abstracts submitted, but I know that the main organizers had already been working on the event for many months. A big thank you to all involved!
Once settled on the plane, I enjoyed Finnair’s delicious complimentary blueberry juice and passed the time learning Finnish from 250 Arki-sanaa: Suomi-Englanti tarrakirja [250 everyday words: Finnish-English sticker book] given to me by my lovely friend and colleague Kate Sotejeff-Wilson. My initial venture into learning Finnish was on Duolingo in February and my first time practising the language in person was at the airport in Helsinki where I ordered a pieni kahvi (small coffee) while waiting for Alice Lehtinen, another dear friend and colleague. Alice had kindly offered to pick me up and drive me to Turku/Åbo – a bilingual city also known by its Swedish name – where the conference was to take place over the next two days.
Turku/Åbo is Finland’s oldest city and – up until 1812 – it was also the country’s first capital. Although the city has suffered a lot of fire damage over the years, its medieval cathedral near the river Aura is still standing. Only the day before, I had been sitting in my office looking for a photo of Turku, similar to the one above, to add to the NEaT newsletter, and then suddenly we were all there, in this picturesque part of town, for welcome drinks on Thursday evening.
As is the norm in Finland, the hotel where some of us were staying, Original Sokos Hotel Kupittaa, had a sauna. Sauna etiquette is slightly different to what I am used to in the Czech Republic or Germany, for example: there are usually separate saunas for men and women, for instance. And while in these countries I know well you generally wear a towel in the sauna, in Finland you go in wearing nothing but your birthday suit and sit on a bench cover similar to a large serviette, called a laudeliina or pefletti. Thanks to Tuuli Ahonen, my new sauna friend, for supplying the names! I was somewhat surprised to see people go into the hot hotel sauna with cans of beer because I thought the metal would soon overheat, but if the drinks are chilled properly beforehand, it’s fine.
Our hotel was conveniently close to the conference venue, the Visitor and Innovation Centre Joki, meaning registration before the start of the official conference programme on Friday was a short five-minute walk away. The first keynote was on Zoom because the speaker had been ill, coupled with the threat of a strike by Scandinavian Airlines, but it all worked out well nevertheless. Susanne Mohr gave an excellent talk about Nordic Languages Interacting with English: Challenges and Changes. This was followed by a thought-provoking panel discussion about the differing role of English in these countries: Nordic Languages Interacting with English: Challenges and Changes. The panellists were from Nordic language councils in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway and the session was expertly moderated by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson.
On Saturday afternoon, NEaT member Ken Quek gave a talk on Human Excellence in an AI World. The main takeaway was that it is not enough for us, as language professionals, to understand the need for human translation but that we have to be able to articulate this to our clients, too. In her keynote English in the Nordic Countries, Elizabeth Peterson then gave an outline of the various contributions to her recent book of the same name, which I bought and look forward to reading soon. The last keynote – in the late afternoon – by Laura Ivaska, The Role of English in Translation into Finnish, gave us an excellent insight into translations from Finnish and other languages through the intermediary of English. Laura had to contend with some disruptions, including a very noisy watering machine right behind her, but she handled it all with the utmost professionalism.
One of the highlights of the conference for me personally was Julie Uusinarkaus’s workshop, The Call to be Kind: Sensitivity in Editing. Her co-facilitator Anna Merikallio was unfortunately unable to attend due to illness but Julie covered. I was Jules’s room angel or monitor, which essentially meant helping ensure that things ran smoothly. The topics examined included gender, race and ethnicity, ableism, and the language of violence. After Julie’s presentation, we divided into small groups to discuss short texts with a view to these topics. All the participants were fully engaged. Some of us also moved out from the small amfiteatteri into the foyer which had a massive, curved screen with a video of the sea and even a breeze blowing and cruise ships passing by. Such a cool classroom! There were also other parallel workshops I would like to have attended. I’m particularly interested in Vanessa Fuller’s workshop on Revising Grant Applications and Funding Proposals and hope to be able to catch that one at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Whereas I was Jules’s room angel, she was my Finnish beer angel for the duration of the trip. She follows local breweries on social media and is something of an expert. Some of the beers we tried included Aura, the local lager named after the river in Turku, a honey-infused beer and Lehtori (which translates as ‘lecturer’). The pub Koulu, meaning ‘school’, soon became our local and a crowd of us frequented it three nights running. What diligent students we were, going to night school to learn all about Finnish beer – in yet another very cool classroom!
Turku is a foodie city and we had some really excellent meals there, especially at the closing dinner at the fancy restaurant Oobu. A big thank you to Judi Rose for organizing that! My main course was salmon
poached in whey and roasted potatoes served with dill cream and pea shoot Hollandaise sauce. My fish starter and lemony almond pastry with fluffy cream cheese and berry salad were also simply divine. Unfortunately, we all got drenched in a downpour on the way to the restaurant but were able to dry off – our shoes in particular – there.
The whole event was over all too quickly. Suddenly, I found myself rushing off from breakfast on Sunday morning to head to the train station adjacent to our hotel. Given the hotel website’s claim that you could go to the station without getting your feet wet – and they also had lots of umbrellas for guests to use –, I have a sneaky suspicion that it rains a lot in Turku. That said, maybe we were just a bit unlucky with the weather during our stay.
I travelled back to Helsinki by train and bus with my German colleague Jennifer Richmond, who impressively works from English, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. She is in one of my online co-working groups but the first time we met in person was at this conference. We were both familiar with the German concept of Schienenersatzverkehr, meaning rail replacement service or, in plain English, a bus service, and Kate taught me that it’s known as korvaava liikenne in Finnish. Although I noticed that a lot of our colleagues based in Finland took an alternative route to avoid this, the train conductor assured us she’d see that we all got on a bus for the last leg of the journey to Helsinki Central Station and it all went smoothly. I’d allowed a couple of extra hours just in case, however. We got to the airport in good time and were able to sit down and enjoy a coffee and korvapuusti (a typical Finnish cinnamon bun) before going through security.
I managed to relax on the short flight home and even had enough space to lie down and have a much-needed nap after the intensity of the past few days. Although I enjoyed the Finnish beer, I was happy to get back to one of my favourite restaurants in Prague – and straight from the airport, I might add – and have some Czech beer, bought for me by my good friend Robin Finesilver in celebration of my Czech name day or svátek (on 1 September). Apparently, my name day in Finland is on 15 April, the same as in Germany; this is another cultural difference to remember next year. Like many of my colleagues, I arrived home tired but buzzing from the trip. Conferences are the perfect way for me to combine my love of learning, travel, meeting like-minded people, and appreciation of good food and drink. I can’t wait for the next one!
Blog post edited by Christine O’Donnell