Quick! Save that person!

 

Quick! Someone has fallen into the water. How do you save that person?

If your instincts fail you, and your Finnish does also, you can use some online translators such as Google or DeepL to read what you need to do on the handy advice board. You quickly get:

SAVE HELP GUIDE

Instructions for use in case of a hatchet
General hat number 112

SHOW!     CALL 112!     THEM!

KAHLAA!   PULL!

But you quickly conclude that you have no hatchet and you do not want to call for a hat. And a few of those other words do not seem to be what you need to do....

Then you realize...you did not type in the letters with accents! a IS NOT ä

You typed: Toimintaohjeet hatatilanteessa

You should have typed: Toimintaohjeet hätätilanteessa

You replace the a with ä and your "Instructions for use in case of a hatchet" turns into "Emergency procedures"

And with the correct ä the "General hat number 112" turns into "General emergency number 112" -- now you are getting somewhere. But onto the rescue instructions. 

HUUDA! gets translated as SHOW! or HELLO!, so you suppose you may need to greet the person in need of help. 

SOITA 112! is CALL 112, so you have that part down. You are mastering Finnish!

HEITA gets translated as THEM with or without the ä accent...so you are stumped there. Move on!

KAHLAA! gets translated as KAHLAA! and that just seems odd...so you type it in as lowercase and you get WADE...and now you are getting some good advice. The pictograms are starting to make sense. You are supposed to get into the water, too. 

Finally, VEDA! gets translated as PULL! and, yes, you remember seeing that command on Finnish doors. But no time to congratulate yourself on your improving Finnish. Time to act. 

1. Greet the floundering person
2. Call 112
3. Ignore the "them" stuff (maybe we need to use a gender-free pronoun) and show the victim the life preserver ring as illustrated on the sign.
4. Wade into the water (and hope that this scenario does not take place in January, February, March, April, May, September, October, November, or December).
5. Pull! With what, well, you can ad lib that part.

And that is why we need to study and practice Finnish more so that we know what to do when companions or strangers fall tin the water.