Jõudu tarvis

I'm currently on a "road trip" for work, preparing to teach a series of classes for a workshop in one of our microcampuses, and I'm planning on starting the workshops off with an Estonian lesson.

Do I think first-year nursing students in a rural Australian city are particularly interesting in learning Estonian? Well, I can't say I'm expecting many of them to say "Oh, good, that's what I came here for" - seeing as the workshop is on academic writing and research skills.

But I'm going to teach them two Estonian words anyway:

Jõudu tarvis

One of the things I love about Estonians is their world-weary and practical nature.

In Australia, if we see someone undertaking an endeavour, like hard physical labour or a difficult task, or running a race or competing in something that takes effort, we wish them luck.

"Good luck!"
"Thanks!"

That's the standard exchange used in these parts, and we use it often.

In Estonia, however, they tend to should out something different:

"Jõudu!" or "Jõudu tööle!"

This is often interpreted in phrasebooks as "good luck", but it actually means "strength!" or "strength for the work!"

Estonians don't wish each other luck when they're undertaking an undertaking, they wish each other enough strength to tackle the work at hand. It's a beautiful thing.

And the response?

"Jõudu tarvis" - "strength is needed."

It's a simple, shared acknowledgement that this is a job that requires strength.

So why do I want to teach this phrase to a bunch of nursing students at an academic writing workshop?

Because writing assignments is a job that requires strength. It might not look much like plowing a field, but it requires time, effort and the use of "muscles" that you don't use in quite that way for anything else. You don't need luck to do well, you need to throw your shoulder into it.

Sometimes it will feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. And if you're studying more than one subject, you'll have to juggle several boulders at the same time.

Jõudu tarvis - strength is needed.

It helps to acknowledge the hard work that assignment writing can be. It helps to understand that you can't expect it to be easy. But, like all work, you get stronger with time.

Jõudu!

The cat in the bucket

I have a little chart on my wall to remind me of the major locative cases in Estonian.  It involves a cat jumping in and out of a bucket.

In Estonian, a lot of the heavy lifting that is done by prepositions in English is carried out by case endings slapped onto the ends of nouns.  The most obvious examples of this (and also the easiest to wrap your head around) are the locative cases.

These cases represent the concept of into/in/"out of" and onto/on/"off from".  In my chart, these concepts are illustrated by having a cat jump in and out of a bucket:

• Kass hüppab ämbrisse (the cat jumps into a bucket)
• Kass on ämbris (the cat is in a bucket)
• Kass hüppab ämbrist välja (the cat jumps out of the bucket - or, more literally, the cat jumps from the bucket to the outside)

The onto/on/"off from" cases are illustrated by the cat jumping onto and off from a table:

• Kass hüppab lauale (the cat jumps onto a table)
• Kass on laual (the cat is on a table)
• Kass hüppab laualt maha (the cat jumps off from a table)

Now, I have a cat, and she is (it must be said) constantly jumping on and off pretty much every item of furniture in the house.  I've never seen her jump into a bucket, though.  A box, yes, but not a bucket.

This makes me wonder - did the writers of the book (from which I photocopied this chart)* have a cat that was known for jumping in and out of buckets, or did they think the sight of a cat jumping into a bucket would be amusing, and therefore memorable?

I suspect it might be the latter.  Other illustrations in the same book are also quite amusing (there's a corker which involves a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat that has been put on a table that has a bear hiding underneath it).

This is something that has been bothering me a bit of late.  It seems to be accepted these days that no one will pay attention to boring things like grammar unless they are jokey and amusing... but sometimes the boring example is the one that explains it best.

I have seen a few English grammar books of late that seem to be aiming for the "cat in the bucket" approach to making their examples fun an interesting - but they go too far in the "slightly unusual" stakes.  It's hard to see the wood for the trees when the trees are going out of their way to dance around and wave their hands.

I'm all for the "cat in the bucket", as long as it is clear, simple and self-explanatory.  But maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt to show something that is every-day, stock-standard, by-the-book and -- dare I say it? -- boring (along with the amusing thing).

Give me the boring version so I can confirm my understanding, then give me the amusing version so I'll remember it.  There's no law that says I can't have both.


*This book is currently in a different house to the one in which I am presently residing, and no one seems to be selling it at present, otherwise I would tell you what this book actually is.  It's quite a nice book, and I refer to it often.