Articles about 'Finland'
April 26th, 2012
My friend Maria Hayda, who has family from Ukraine, wrote: “Lisa, pussy willow is what we use for our Easters :) since Eastern Europe is unable to grow palm trees… My Grandmother had a huge bouquet she saved thru the decades. Now I’ve started my own bouquet.”
According to Wikipedia, “The flowering shoots of pussy willow...
February 17th, 2012
Open Culture has a page of free language learning links covering 40 languages.
Here are some of the languages you can find links for…
Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, Gaelic, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Maori, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swahili,...
December 12th, 2011
Santa Lucia’s Day is celebrated on December 13th in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. It commemorates the life of Santa Lucia, who is also known as Saint Lucy. It’s the beginning of the Christmas season in those countries and is a celebration of light – at the time of year when the world is darker. ...
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March 30th, 2011
Here’s a lovely Swedish poem about a moonlit summer night. It was written by Finnish poet Edith Södergran (1892 – 1923).
You can listen to the recording below and follow along with the original poem in Swedish. The you’ll find a loose English translation after the poem.
MP3 of Nocturne as read by Johan Borg
Nocturne...
April 23rd, 2010
Teresa Tirado wrote asking about a Finnish lullaby:
My recently past grandmother used to sing a Finnish version of Rock A By Baby to me as a child. I am desperately searching for the words and clip so as to be able to learn to sing it to my children. Please if you could...
January 7th, 2010
Nikoletta wrote:
Dear Mama Lisa,
I would like to ask your help. I’m a Hungarian girl (a mother with two children). My grandmother came from Finland, but we can’t speak Finnish. She died in 2000. In my mind there is a song from my children’s age: Tipu, tipu ….. I tried to find this song on...
May 15th, 2009
Paul Gogojuice asked the following question on the Mama Lisa’s World Facebook Group:
Hi all. My grandmother is full Finnish and as a child she always had 2 different sayings that she’d say to us. I don’t know how to spell them or anything, but I’m going to do my best to explain them.
The first one...
February 22nd, 2009

We’d love it if you’d join the Mama Lisa Facebook Group. You can post anything you’d like about your culture. You can post your own musical recordings or YouTube videos… Links to culture and musical sites… Photos of your country… Questions about songs or cultural issues… Anything related to World Culture and...
February 9th, 2009
Jessica wrote to me looking for help with a kids song from Finland…
hello,
i am looking for a Finnish children’s song called TUKU TUKU ULLIGA FOREN, KILI KILI VITA LAMMEN……. the rest i don’t know. sorry, i know the spelling is all wrong, but if u can make it out and send me the...
February 7th, 2008

GUEST BLOGGER
Lisa Smith of Regionz Kidz has graciously shared this interesting post about international Valentine’s Day traditions.
February 14th has come to mean red and pink hearts, flowers, chocolates and Hallmark cards here in the US. But, how did Valentine’s Day become a day that we celebrate with our loved ones? Valentine’s Day began...
December 4th, 2007
Several days ago I wrote a post about the Santa Lucia holiday in Sweden and Scandinavia.
A popular saying associated with this holiday is:
Lucy Light,
The Shortest day &
The Longest Night.
This saying celebrates the association of St Lucia’s Day, December 13, with the Winter Solstice which, under the old Julian calendar, used to fall...
December 2nd, 2007

Santa Lucia’s Day is celebrated on December 13th in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. It commemorates the life of Santa Lucia, who is also known as Saint Lucy.
St. Lucy was born in Syracuse, Sicily around 283 and died in 303 AD. The myth is that her parents wanted her to marry a man...
January 17th, 2007
Last year I wrote about St. Knut’s Day, a holiday celebrated on January 13th, in Sweden, Finland and Norway. St. Knut’s Day is all about getting rid of all the Christmas decorations and throwing out the tree, thus ending the Christmas season.
When I wrote about it last year, I asked if anyone knew of...
January 6th, 2007

In addition to this blog, I also host Mama Lisa’s World. Mama Lisa’s World is a large collection of children’s songs and rhymes from countries all around the globe.
Matt, a music teacher from Rhode Island, wrote a question to me, the other day, about Mama Lisa’s World:
Hey Mama,
I love the concept of your site....
December 22nd, 2006
While I have this link at hand, I’d like to recommend www.freedict.com. It’s a site devoted to free online language dictionaries. You can translate between English and the following languages:
Afrikaans
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Latin
Norwegian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
I find that it can usually succeed at translating the words I need.
Feel free to recommend other language dictionaries that you like in the...
December 13th, 2006
Julie and Beth wrote looking for the origins of two Scandinavian rhymes that are played with little kids while touching their toes. We’re wondering if anyone’s ever heard of these rhymes and perhaps knows what country they’re from and/or anything else about their origins. Here’s what Julie wrote:
I have been searching for the...
November 30th, 2006
A significant part of the Mama Lisa sites is a large collection of songs and nursery rhymes from around the world. We currently have about 750 songs from around 90 countries and cultures.
When you consider how many languages there are in those cultures – that’s a lot of information! In order to make...
November 15th, 2006
Believe it or not, it’s quite interesting to listen to a choir singing about their complaints in Finnish. You can do just that, and you can read along with English subtitles, by clicking on the button below. But beware! The tune is quite catchy. So by the end you’ll be humming...
January 12th, 2006
St. Knut’s Day is a holiday celebrated in Sweden, Finland and Norway, on January 13th. The day is called Tjugondag Knut in Sweden, which means 20th day Knut. In Norway it’s called Tyvendedagen, which I believe, is 20th day.
On St. Knut’s Day, they say they “plunder” the Christmas tree. If...
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