Tongue-tied - Part Four

By Anu Nousiainen
     
      Eddy Hawkins has come back from his break on the balcony. The panellists continue their work by settling down to listen to Heidi Hautala, the former leader of the Finnish Greens, who was recently re-elected to the European Parliament, where she previously served from 1995 to 2003.
      She is heard at a briefing for the international press prior to the 2006 Presidential elections.
     
In the panel's considered opinion, Hautala's otherwise excellent English comes across like the staccato rat-tat-tat of a machine pistol.
      William Moore uses the expression "clipped", and a few minutes are spent in trying to define what this means.
      "No... 'jerky' comes across as altogether too negative, somehow. Maybe it's closer to 'taut' and 'strung', like the strings on a tennis racquet. Hautala could loosen it up a bit, throw in some 'mmmmms' or do like Vanhanen does and sprinkle his speech with 'because because because'. Right now she sounds like a steamroller."
      On the other hand, the panel shows its appreciation for one or two colloquial expressions that are dropped into her speech quite naturally, like "they couldn't care less".
      Hawkins says: "At that point I almost stood up and applauded."
      The panel are unanimous - Hautala gets a rock-solid 9.
      "She could get a ten if she learnt to say words like 'three' properly. Now it came out as 'free'."
     
And what about the other MEPs?
      Former National Coalition Party leader Ville Itälä has come to a personal decision that he will speak only Finnish in official connections.
      His former colleague on the EPP (European People's Party) benches Piia-Noora Kauppi, who has already come back from Brussels to a job in Finland, went the other way: she decided to use English exclusively after an incident where an interpreter mangled the point of a speech she had delivered.
      Unfortunately, no samples are available for either of them.
     
Itälä's choice might also be something to do with power.
      Doesn't it often seem that those who are in the fortunate position of using English as a mother-tongue have the upper hand?
      "Yes, it's damned easy to come across as clever and witty in your own language", admits Moore. "The Brits and the Americans get all the mileage they possibly can out of this."
     
Moore and Hawkins listen to what Eija-Riitta Korhola (another MEP from Finland's National Coalition Party) has to say.
      "She's quick, but the words all run in together, and she stumbles over difficult words. In some cases the accent is on the wrong syllable. It's not 'pi'rated goods', but 'pirated', Moore says.
      "She is like the girl in the fifth row in class. Daddy has helped her in writing her speech and he's put some difficult words in there, like 'repercussions', because they look good on paper. But Daddy has forgotten that his daughter has to read the speech out loud", chides Hawkins.
      The panel gives her a 7.
     
"If I listened to Satu Hassi for more than five minutes, I'd drop off to sleep", Moore complains about the Green MEP and former MP.
      "She's perfectly competent, but it's colourless. And she loses some points for pronunciation."
      Satu Hassi gets an 8 minus and an 8.
      A deep hush falls over both panellists at the appearance of Anneli Jäätteenmäki on the screen.
      Anneli was, after all, Prime Minister briefly in 2003 after leading the Centre Party to victory in the elections of that year.
      "It's as if she were reading a shopping list", says Moore of Jäätteenmäki's clip.
      Both give her 6+.
     
Next up is Mitro Repo, also known as "Father Mitro", the popular Orthodox priest who was elected to the European Parliament earlier this year as an independent candidate on the Social Democrat ticket.
      Interviewed in the European Parliament, Mitro Repo makes mistakes, but seems completely unfazed by them, and he ploughs on regardless.
      Moore comes out with a colourful expression in Finnish that could perhaps be loosely translated as "blunt-force trauma fluency".
      Mitro takes no prisoners with his attack on the language.
     
"This level of language skills is very common among Finns in his age group. But does he really need to speak any better than this?" Hawkins wonders aloud.
      "Then again", he goes on, "The average man in the street in Texas wouldn't understand more than a third of this, because Repo's pronunciation is so very Finnish."
      Moore says: "Better than Paasikivi or Kekkonen", though of course the comparison is rather false, given the fact that Repo is at least talking, rather than reading a text.
      Repo gets a 7- grade.
     
And what about Timo Soini of the populist True Finns, also recently elected to the European Parliament with a veritable mountain of votes?
      Soini's sample is like several others before, taken from the meet-the-press sessions ahead of the 2006 Presidential elections.
      Here the panel seem a little split.
      "He'd have been better off talking in the pub. Maybe Soini isn't comfortable with formal English", says Hawkins of the video clip, which indicates good fluency, but...
      "He's not really able to express himself properly in English. He's sharp, but the sharp side doesn't come through. If I were to apply Will's figure-skating scale I was worried he'd fall on his arse at any moment."
     
Despite these reservations, the panel consider Soini's performance to be satisfactory.
      "He just about scrapes an 8", says Hawkins.
      Moore offers 8+, and says he's chatted with Soini in English and he was pretty fluent, although admittedly they were talking football and not politics. Timo Soini is also known as Finland's most famous Millwall FC supporter.
      Soini gets the same grade as President Halonen. "Yes, but if you had to pick one or the other to address the UN General Assembly, I'd take Halonen any day", says Hawkins.
     
Unlike Soini, MEP colleague Sirpa Pietikäinen (National Coalition Party) has made three speeches in the European Parliament chamber this autumn, all of them in English.
      Hawkins: "Pietikäinen is ambitious in her approach, but she overreaches a bit."
      Moore is less critical: "She's pushing her limits and I think we should applaud her efforts. Besides, she manages to make her speech sound as though she's right on top of what she's saying."
      Pietikäinen gets an 8 and an unofficial "one to watch in the future" commendation.
     
The afternoon has turned into evening, and as the video-clips begin to blur into one, the panel are grateful to hear there are not many left.
      Minister of Transport Anu Vehviläinen gets a 7 for reading her opening address to an energy forum.
      There is only a short example of SDP leader Jutta Urpilainen in English, and she gets a mark of 7 minus.
      This causes a modicum of surprise among the panel, since at 34 Urpilainen is after all one of the younger generation of political front-runners, and would arguably have benefited from the better, more "communicative" and "oral" style of language teaching in schools that older Finnish politicians never had access to.
      The Deputy Speaker of Parliament Seppo Kääriäinen (Centre) springs another surprise, in coming across better in English than he does in Finnish.
      "He's a bit like Kimi [Räikkönen], in that he sounds a lot less awful in English than he sounds when you hear him in Finnish", says Moore.
      Kääriäinen scores 8- / 8.
     
Then the panel get to hear some samples of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.
      "This man is not in his own comfort zone here", observes Moore.
      "He's not really doing very well. It's a bit like he were trying to cross a river over stepping-stones. All the time he has to look ahead for the next stone, and sometimes he has to stretch awkwardly for it, and sometimes he just doesn't find it", Moore adds.
      "Vanhanen has a pile of phrases, which he strings together and in different order, like Lego bricks - Jyrki Katainen used much the same technique. Vanhanen also makes grammatical mistakes and uses the definite article in a manner all his own", says Hawkins.
      "Six plus", Moore opens the bidding.
      "Seven minus", offers Hawkins. "I think it would be rather uncomfortable to sit next to him at a dinner."
     
Moore is now feeling he might have been too harsh.
      "In a way, 6+ is a bit unfair, because he is actually using the language here. All we heard from Urho Kekkonen and Ahti Karjalainen earlier were them reading aloud from a prepared speech."
     
Should Vanhanen resort more often to using the services of an interpreter?
      That's what Prof. Andrew Chesterman had been saying: if you don't feel comfortable in English, it's better to call for an interpreter.
      "Yes, but for the Prime Minister it would be a serious image problem", notes Hawkins.
     
Moore wants to go à la carte and calls up a clip of former Prime Minister, Speaker of Parliament, and SDP Chairman Paavo Lipponen, who was not on the original list.
      "Yes. I thought I remembered right! He hasn't got such a strong Finnish accent. He's pretty fluent, because he spent a year in the States on a Fulbright scholarship."
      "Solid", says Hawkins of Lipponen.
      "Pedestrian", observes Moore: Lipponen's delivery in English is every bit as slow and ponderous as it is in Finnish.
      Paavo Lipponen, now retired from everyday politics, scores an out-of-competition 9.
     
There is just one ministerial language sample left to be examined.
      When Alexander Stubb took over as Minister for Foreign Affairs in April of last year and held his first press conference, you could almost hear a sigh of relief among the audience.
      At last here was someone who could speak English (and French!); someone who could bury those tankero gags about foreign ministers of the past.
     
The panel got two clips to listen to.
      In the first, Stubb is seen in front of the Presidential Palace, doing a live stand-up to camera as he is interviewed by a Russian journalist over a satellite link from Moscow.
      In the second example he does a general "how do you do" and press photo-opportunity alongside Hillary Clinton at the State Department in Washington.
      This is the last throw of the dice: will the panel crush the great white hope?
      The exhausted panellists break into broad smiles.
      "Rock 'n' roll", says Hawkins.
      "He stands out from the others in the fact that he doesn't need to think he's speaking a foreign language. He's got the language just where he wants it. It's like a kid riding his bike with no hands on the handlebars."
      Stubb gets a 10.
     
But the panellists, dogged to the end, note that the Finnish accent does sometimes poke through. It's so deep in there, even in Stubb, that ancient Finnish rhythm.
     
Still, he's the model pupil nonetheless.
      Our perfect ten.
      And all it takes is to grow up in a bilingual (Swedish & Finnish) home, have summer jobs in Germany, study for a couple of years in the States and then in Paris and London, work extensively abroad (Stubb came to the foreign desk from the European Parliament), and marry an Englishwoman.
      Easy when you know how, really.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print in the October 2009 issue of the Kuukausiliite monthly supplement.
     
     
Note: We do not normally urge readers to look at other articles, but in this case it makes a lot of sense to read Unto Hämäläinen's piece about the history of Finnish politicians and language. It is a history littered with thousands of hard-working interpreters and very few politicians who felt a need to speak in another language - in part because that was "how things were". The fact that things are patently NOT like that in EU-Finland today is perhaps the reason for this particular article.

More on this subject:
 Tongue-tied
 Tongue-tied - Part Two
 Tongue-tied - Part Three

Previously in HS International Edition:
  If they can´t speak foreign languages now, they certainly couldn´t before (6.10.2009)