Finnish food idioms: soup, fish and swallowed words

Food is a rich source of Finnish idioms, because cooking and eating are part of daily life. The images are domestic: a pot of soup, a fish out of water, a word you have to swallow. Each entry gives the literal translation first, then the meaning you will hear, the nearest English phrase and an example.

These are informal or everyday expressions. Check the example sentences with a Finnish speaker before you rely on them in writing.

Quick reference

Keittää omaa soppaansa

Literal: "To cook one's own soup."
Meaning: Used in the accusing form sinähän sopan keitit ("you really cooked a soup"), it tells someone that they have made a mess of something, or made a mistake. It is a half-serious reproach, not a neutral statement.
English equivalent: You have really made a mess of it. Compare "Well, you've done it now."
Example: Sinähän sopan keitit, nyt meidän pitää myöhästyä junasta. (You've really made a mess of it, now we have to miss the train.)

The literal "cook your own soup" sounds like a harmless hobby, and that is the joke. In everyday speech the idiom is almost always used to tell someone off for a mistake. Keep the possessive oma, and do not use it to mean "doing your own thing" in a neutral way.

Syödä sanansa

Literal: "To eat one's words."
Meaning: To admit that you were wrong and take back what you said.
English equivalent: To eat your words.
Example: Hän joutui syömään sanansa, kun ennuste ei toteutunutkaan. (He had to eat his words when the prediction did not come true.)

Ottaa nokkiinsa

Literal: "To take it into its beak." The image is a bird pecking at something.
Meaning: To be offended by a remark, often more than the speaker intended.
English equivalent: To take offence, to take something personally.
Example: Älä ota sitä nokkiisi, hän ei tarkoittanut pahaa. (Do not take it personally, he did not mean harm.)

Olla kuin kala kuivalla maalla

Literal: "To be like a fish on dry land."
Meaning: To feel completely out of place, or to be in an unfamiliar situation where you cannot cope.
English equivalent: To be like a fish out of water.
Example: Ensimmäisellä työpäivällä olin kuin kala kuivalla maalla. (On my first working day I felt like a fish out of water.)

Using these well

Keep the parts. Like all Finnish idioms, the phrases are fixed. Keittää omaa soppaansa is the phrase; the possessive ending -nsa changes with the person: keitän omaa soppaani, keität omaa soppaasi.
Mind the case. In olla kuin kala kuivalla maalla, the verb is an infinitive and the rest stays the same. See the local cases for the endings of the place words in other idioms.

Practice

For more everyday idioms, see everyday Finnish idioms.