My Finnish never really got past the 'Ju' (?) stage!
I had a Finnish family as neighbours some years ago and the day they (and their sled racing team of 6 Greenland Huskys) moved in, they invited us round for 'something to drink'.
Being unaccustomed to Finnish hospitality and unsure as to what the evening entailed we ate a reasonable supper before we went, to soak up the 'drinks'!
Matti welcomed us at the door with half pint tumblers of gin and tonic; with very little, if any, tonic!
Lena appeared with some nibbles while Matti topped up the gin, literally in the time it took me to type it!!
The nibbles were followed by a huge tray of air dried reindeer meat and a couple more enormous gins
Various plates of 'finger food' kept on coming as Matti opened two more bottles of tonic; God only knows how many bottles of gin had disappeared by this time
Just when we had admitted defeat and insisted we couldn't eat another thing, Lena appeared from the kitchen with the most enormous casserole I have ever seen, accompanied by about five different types of bread 'to help soak up the alcohol'; thank goodness we ate before we went
I am sure most Finns don't drink as much as they did(?) but in the 18 months they stayed in the UK I almost became tee-total at home
They gave up Europe and went back to the family farm within sight of the Russian border and kept in touch by sending photos of the timber house they were building, the most ridiculous artillery piece I have ever seen in a huge concrete bunker in their back garden and the sight of Russian soldiers 'exercising' along their garden fence! A short video tape of Matti taking pot-shots at them with his army-issue rifle almost had me digging a bunker of my own in case he caused WWIII to break out.
Apparently it was common for the Soviet soldiers to poach on Finnish territory and equally common for the local Finns to shoot them on sight for doing so
Brian (who really should have learned the Finnish for 'No!' instead of just 'Yes!'
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