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Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

helsinkibusinesshub.fi

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Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#611

Post by piva00 »

disown wrote: post #604
piva00 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take this as someone who moved to Sweden and have learned a bit of the language, I don't speak Finnish but have had contact with it through Finnish friends for 5+ years now. Finnish is hard just because it's too different from our Indo-European languages mental model. On the other hand, Finnish is easy to pick up if you are going to study it because the written form is very close to the spoken one (even though spoken…

> Finnish is hard just because it's too different from our Indo-European languages mental model. What indo-european language mental model? There is no such thing. Indo-european languages vary widely. Just because these languages shares a few primitive words doesn't mean it is easy for an english speaker to learn spanish or german or russian. > The grammar is logical, there are a few exceptions per case, it's just ver…

Be civil, this isn't reddit.

I'm not going to take my time to cover all of your points, I'm not using academic terms and yes, making up my own terms to put down what it's been my experience. Indo-European languages share a lot of structure and roots, similar ways of thinking even if phrasal structure are very different between Germanic and Latin languages, the same for Slavic ones.

I choose to do with my own time whatever I prefer, card tricks have been part of it, yoyo tricks in my childhood/teens, and so on. I'm not wasting years learning Swedish because I live in this country and I'm becoming a citizen, it's been a fun endeavour that I started with the mindset that in the worst case it'd be a party trick.

This is my experience, instead of being an ass, try to improve on top of it, you help nobody.

Now please, try to behave as is expected by the rules of this forum, I try to come here to have civil conversations and not expecting this place to devolve into some other cesspool subreddit.

Cheers.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#612

Post by rsj_hn »

refurb wrote: post #378
mapgrep wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ww2 in Europe was largely won by the USSR. Britain and the US opened a western front quite belatedly after years of begging by the USSR, after the Soviets sacrificed 15+ million lives to turn the tide, and after a lot of wasted time focusing on minor gains in North Africa (at Churchill’s insistence). Combined US and UK military’s deaths were less than a tenth those for USSR. We love to pat ourselves on the back with…

Yes, the USSR paid a very high price for the defeat of Germany. And yes, the US and UK could have stayed out of it and the USSR would have rolled up to the Atlantic Ocean and we'd be talking about the amazing growth of the Finnish economy since it's independence from the USSR in 1990.

It's unlikely that the USSR would have been able to defeat Germany on its own. In addition to opening a second front in Italy and a third front in France, and sharing military designs to improve Soviet tanks - direct US aid included:

"more than 400,000 vehicles, 14,000 aircraft, 13,000 battle tanks, gasoline and explosives, and thousands of radio sets and motorcycles, as well as food, blankets, machine tools, factory equipment, and boots. The U.S. had provided 55% of the aluminum and 80% of the copper used by the Soviets."

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/lendlease_h...

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#613

Post by lbschenkel »

Sharlin wrote: post #147
beachy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yyyy-mm-dd for the win indeed, if only for being naively sortable.

Yyyy-mm-dd is not used in real life because it puts the (in most contexts) least useful information first.

FYI: this is the common way to write dates in Sweden.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#614

Post by seanmcdirmid »

whitexn--g28h wrote: post #327
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to pay to use most roads in the USA, on a usage basis at least. The use of the word free but not really isn’t foreign to Americans.

You absolutely pay for roads on a usage basis [1] unless you drive an electric car. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...

The gas tax hasn’t covered the cost of road maintenance since the 80s.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#615

Post by yencabulator »

sriku wrote: post #476
waihtis wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that it's a super difficult language where you can't draw any help from any other languages you might now. Plus it's obscure and if you move out of Finland you'll likely never use it again. I can see why people don't want to invest huge amounts of time learning it unless they plan to stay for the rest of their lives.

I live in South India and I find Finnish easy to my ears (I speak Tamil) due to the double consonants and double vowels that Tamil shares. In fact a Finnish friend of my dad's learnt Tamil via remote from one of our poets .. to get proficient enough to translate some ancient poetry into Finnish! Ref: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_H%C3%A4meenniemi

As a Finn, sometimes when I see a Tamil name I have to do a double take because at first I'll try to read it as a Finnish name. The written forms of the the languages seem to have eerie similarities, though I fully expect them to superficial coincidences.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#616

Post by yencabulator »

stevekemp wrote: post #557
ptero wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Is this professional conversations or in stores / restaurants / on the streets? I thought English is not spoken by many folks over there, at least outside the IT/tech scene.

If you pick an average person under 40 they will have near-perfect English. Partly due to media, partly due to the internet. English seems common in the groups of immigrants you come across too. I know people who've moved from France, etc, and there are lots of immigrants from various countries - many of whom speak their own language, and English as the second. Some go on to learn Finnish to a greater or lesser exten…

I think if you tell people you want to practice your Finnish, and you're not in a busy restaurant / grocery store, they'll entertain you. Younger Finns just have stopped assuming that people would bother learning Finnish.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#617

Post by disown »

piva00 wrote: post #611
disown wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finnish is hard just because it's too different from our Indo-European languages mental model. What indo-european language mental model? There is no such thing. Indo-european languages vary widely. Just because these languages shares a few primitive words doesn't mean it is easy for an english speaker to learn spanish or german or russian. > The grammar is logical, there are a few exceptions per case, it's just ver…

Be civil, this isn't reddit. I'm not going to take my time to cover all of your points, I'm not using academic terms and yes, making up my own terms to put down what it's been my experience. Indo-European languages share a lot of structure and roots, similar ways of thinking even if phrasal structure are very different between Germanic and Latin languages, the same for Slavic ones. I choose to do with my own time wha…

> Be civil, this isn't reddit.

No need for ad hominems. I was civil. Victimhood is a tired and hateful reddit style personal attack. Stop it.

> I'm not using academic terms and yes, making up my own terms to put down what it's been my experience.

No. You are using academic terms and then making things up. Why are you doubling down?

> Indo-European languages share a lot of structure and roots, similar ways of thinking even if phrasal structure are very different between Germanic and Latin languages, the same for Slavic ones.

phrasal structure? What are you talking about.

> This is my experience, instead of being an ass, try to improve on top of it, you help nobody.

You helped nobody either. Actually you hurt people by making things up.

> Now please, try to behave as is expected by the rules of this forum, I try to come here to have civil conversations and not expecting this place to devolve into some other cesspool subreddit.

You are the one turning it into a cesspool with ad hominems and victimhood.

For someone so sure of his decision, you sure are defensive. And I wasn't being "uncivil", my "party trick" comment was actually a joke. I was poking a little fun. It was harmless. People like you are why the internet and places like sweden are turning into a horrible place. Loosen up, stop taking things so personally/seriously and move on. And if someone calls you on a mistake, why not admit it and learn from it rather than doubling down with "phrasal structure". Have a nice day. Civil enough for ya?

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#618

Post by piva00 »

disown wrote: post #617
piva00 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be civil, this isn't reddit. I'm not going to take my time to cover all of your points, I'm not using academic terms and yes, making up my own terms to put down what it's been my experience. Indo-European languages share a lot of structure and roots, similar ways of thinking even if phrasal structure are very different between Germanic and Latin languages, the same for Slavic ones. I choose to do with my own time wha…

> Be civil, this isn't reddit. No need for ad hominems. I was civil. Victimhood is a tired and hateful reddit style personal attack. Stop it. > I'm not using academic terms and yes, making up my own terms to put down what it's been my experience. No. You are using academic terms and then making things up. Why are you doubling down? > Indo-European languages share a lot of structure and roots, similar ways of thinking…

Sure, have a nice day!

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#619

Post by eru »

dharma1 wrote: post #566
eru wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helsinki could also have badly paid migrant workers, if they wanted to. Instead they don't let migrant construction workers nor gardeners nor cleaners etc into the country, which is worse for global inequality. But, out of sight, out of mind. (There's more to say about income distribution in Singapore, but having migrant workers, even if badly paid, is a plus in my book. If Singaporean immigration was more open, they…

>Helsinki could also have badly paid migrant workers, if they wanted to. Instead they don't let migrant construction workers nor gardeners nor cleaners etc into the country, which is worse for global inequality. But, out of sight, out of mind. (There's more to say about income distribution in Singapore, but having migrant workers, even if badly paid, is a plus in my book. I also think low-skilled migrants are ok, to…

> I also think low-skilled migrants are ok, to a degree. Migrants from EU can travel and work in Finland freely without visa. There are many Estonian, and some Bulgarian etc construction workers - but there also legally enforced minimum salaries for everyone. In Singapore there is no minimum salary and that is one of the causes of their extreme income distribution.

You are mixing up two things. First, Singapore doesn't have minimum wages for locals. There are much more interventionist for foreigners: there are different visa categories, and they come with restrictions like minimum salaries and various levies etc.

(And that's independent of any critique of the notion that outlawing jobs for people with low productivity does them a favour.

Interestingly, Finland also doesn't have a universal minimum wage. Just like my native Germany didn't use to have one.)

But yes, you are right to remind me that the EU is rather big and has parts that are much poorer than Finland where the Fins might draw construction workers.

About cars: for most people they are status objects here. There's more of a real need for cars for people with lots of kids, but even there ride hailing has gotten much more convenient in the last decade.

About the costs: the well to do foreigners that can afford private schools are also exactly those that the country is most open to offering permanent residency and citizenship to.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#620

Post by eru »

enriquto wrote: post #544
dharma1 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Singapore is one of my other favourite cities in addition to Helsinki! In many ways it's very different though - while the taxes are lower, its generally much more expensive, especially if you have kids. Singapore is a very dense, packed, hot city - you get a bit of island fever and are not so close to nature. Helsinki is literally the opposite. Singapore and Helsinki are both very, very safe, but I find Sing…

> I think Singapore is one of my other favourite cities in addition to Helsinki! You have a really open mind if two such different cities are your favourites! In my view, Helsinky is a really nice place, but Singapore is a scary, hellish dystopia.

Have you been?

It's perhaps not for everybody. But the usual complaint from the set of people who have been and don't love the place, is that it's perhaps a bit too boring and well ordered.

It's pretty much the opposite of scary here. I like that I don't have to constantly use 20% of my brain when out in a cafe to keep an eye on my stuff like in London, where things get nicked left and right.

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