A translation and linguistic analysis of Käärijä's "Cha Cha Cha"
9 May 2023
Here I present a close gloss and a freer translation of Finland's 2023 Eurovision song entry, "Cha Cha Cha" by Käärijä (YouTube link). I do this because I don't think the "official" translation is all that good, and I'm sure someone out there is interested in more than a Google translation, and maybe someone is also interested in how the Finnish language works in this case.
The song itself
(See this list of glossing abbreviations for the meaning of NOM, 1PL and the like. (Or mouse over them for a tooltip.) If no noun or adjective case is written, assume the nominative. If no number is witten, assume singular. If no person is written, assume first-person I mark YLE's "official" translation with (YLE) and my free-form translation with (mine).)
1: Rankka viikko ja paljon pitkii päiviä takan
"This exhausting week and the many long days are behind." (YLE)
"I've had a long-ass week with long-ass days." (mine)
The standard form of the final three words is pitkiä päiviä takana, which would be nine syllables.
Käärijä has chosen to simplify pitkiä into pitkii (two syllables – iä is not an allowed diphthong and thus there is a syllable break in it)
and do the capital-region apocope of removing the final a of takana.
This way he shortens the phrase into seven syllables – necessary to make it fit with the next line.
Additionally: like my mother-language (Finnish) teacher in school taught,
all clauses (lause) have a verb in them, and if you can't see it, it's implied.
Here the implied verb of the first clause (rankka viikko)
is olla, 'to be',
probably in the third person singular perfect form on ollut 'has been', which is used in Finnish as a possessive '(someone) has had',
with the unmentioned person being the first-person protagonist: 'I have had'.
2: Mielenkiintona piña colada ja rata
"There's only bar and piña colada on my mind." (YLE)
"I want to go to the bar and get some piña coladas." (mine)
The use of the word rata to mean a bar is foreign to me – its literal meaning is a track (train track, running track, racetrack, trajectory).
Finnish doesn't have the ñ sound [ɲ] natively; it's usually pronounced as [nj],
but Käärijä doesn't sing it like that, leaving it just as a plain [n].
This is probably because of meter: pin-ja would cause the first syllable to be closed, and thus can't be sung longer, while pi-na can have the [i] vowel lengthened to fit the beat.
3: Ilta on vielä nuori ja aikaa kumota
"There is some time for a few, the night is still youngish" (YLE)
"The night is young, with plenty of time to drink" (mine)
The first clause (before ja) has the required verb (on); the second lacks it, but on is implicitly between aikaa and kumota.
Kumota is a weird verb: here it means to turn over a glass (and metaphorically, drink the contents of the glass), but it also means to flip over, overthrow a ruler, or undo an action in a program.
The verb on, which I've here glossed as 'is' for brevity, is the third person singular indicative present of olla, much like what 'is' is to 'to be'.
4: Tää jäinen ulko-kuori on aika tuhota
"This icy shell is something I have to demolish" (YLE)
"It's time to put down my hard shell (and remove all inhibitions)" (mine)
The shortened form of the determiner tää is used instead of the standard, but two-syllable, tämä.
The word kuori has various meanings and translations (skin, peel, shell, bark, crust), but 'shell' is most sensible here.
The construction on aika <verb> is used to express 'it is time to <verb>'.
5: Pidän kaksin käsin kiinni juomista niinku
"Holding on the drinks with both hands tied on them like a..." (YLE)
"I grab the drinks with both hands like..." (mine)
The verb pitää, when used with kiinni, means 'to hold onto' or 'to grasp'.
Here we see a number being in the plural – Finnish numbers are inflected much like nouns are, and it matters what grammatical number they're in.
We also see the use of the instructive case: kaksin käsin, 'with two hands', 'using two hands'.
The word niinku is a compound of niin and kun, fused and shortened;
it means 'like', as in 'as in', but it's also a meaningless filler word, just like 'like' is in English.
Whether the second n in it is pronounced differs by speaker and situation:
the word can be alternatively written as niiku (or, on the internet, niinq, niiq).
I believe Käärijä actually sings it with a nasalized i, absorbing the n into the preceding vowel:
[niĩku].
6: Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha
There's no need to translate this.
I don't think the lyrics here make sense semantically ("holding on like a cha-cha-cha", "drinking like a cha-cha-cha"?), but that's neither here nor there, as long as it's catchy.
7: Ei, en mieti huomista ku tartun tuopista niinku
"No, there's no tomorrow when I grab a pint tightly like a..." (YLE)
"Now that I'm drinking, I don't give a shit about tomorrow" (mine)
The word ei is challenging to explain succintly.
It's literal meaning is 'no', but it's also used to form all negative forms of verbs:
instead of inflecting the verb directly,
the inflection is moved to the word ei, which is an auxiliary verb itself.
Thus, while on the surface the gloss of the sentence is 'no no think tomorrow when...',
the en of en mieti is part of the inflection itself, and cannot be deleted:
'no not-think tomorrow when...".
(If the sentence was positive, 'I do think about tomorrow', the clause would be mietin huomista.)
The particle ku is again in shortened colloquial form, characteristic of the capital region dialect; the standard form is kun, and I think he actually sings it as kun sometimes.
8: Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha
9: Ei, haluun olla sekasin ja vapaa huolista niinku
"No, wanna mess my head up and to free my mind of fear like a..." (YLE)
"I wanna get smashed and forget about my worries" (mine)
Haluun is a simplified form of standard haluan,
and sekasin is a shortened form of standard sekaisin.
Sekaisin has a dictionary definition of 'in disorder, in confusion, messy', but here the meaning is to be completely smashed and uninhibited.
10: Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha, ei!
This verse adds an additional interjective 'no'.
11: Ja mä jatkan kunnes en enää pysy tuolissa niinku
"And I stay on this seat until I have to climb off it like a..." (YLE)
"And I keep drinking until I fall off the seat" (mine)
Mä is a shortened colloquial form of standard minä.
We also see a case of a split negative: en pysy 'I don't stay on, I don't remain, I fall off' has an enää 'still, any more' put in the middle of it.
En pysy enää would be grammatically correct but it doesn't fit the rhythm.
12: Muutama piña colada on jo takana
"A couple piña coladas I have devoured" (YLE)
"I've drunk a few piña coladas already" (mine)
Notice how this verse used the unshortened form takana, where the first used takan.
They have the same meaning, but in this case, takana rhymes (has assonance) with the next verse's vakava, and fits the beat better.
13: Silti mul on vielä naamataulu vakava
"Yet the expression I have on my face is sour" (YLE)
"But my face is still sour/serious" (mine)
Mul is a shortened colloquial form of standard minulla; it's literal meaning is 'at me', but it's a very common construction that indicates possession: 'my'.
Naamataulu is a compound: the first part, naama, means a face, but kasvot would be a more polite, more standard term.
The second part, taulu, has many meanings: 'painting', 'framed picture', 'blackboard, whiteboatrd, billboard, noticeboard', 'clock face', 'mathematical table', 'database table', 'associative array/map'.
The combination of these two still means 'face', but in an impolite way.
14: Ilta on vielä nuori ja aikaa kumota
15: Tää jäinen ulko-kuori on aika tuhota
16: Parketti kutsuu mua ku en oo enää lukossa
"The floor is calling me when I'm no longer so frozen" (YLE)
"The dance floor beckons me now that I'm free of my anxieties" (mine)
The word parketti literally means a parquet – a type of wooden flooring material – but metonymically it means a dance floor, as those are covered in parquet.
Mua is a colloquial shortened form of standard minua: the partitive of minä.
The partitive is used because the dancefloor is beckoning me in a general way, and not literally in the first place,
while using the accusative minut would imply that the dancefloor has sent an actual invitation addressed to me.
En oo is a colloquial shortened form of standard en ole.
17: Niinku cha cha cha mä oon tulossa
"Like a cha cha cha I am approachin' " (YLE)
"I approach it, like the cha cha cha (that I will dance)" (mine)
18: Pidän kaksin käsin kiinni juomista niinku
19: Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha
20: Ei, en mieti huomista ku tartun tuopista niinku
21: Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha
22: Ei, haluun olla sekasin ja vapaa huolista niinku
23: Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha
24: Ja mä jatkan kunnes en enää pysy tuolissa niinku
25: Vou
Vou is a direct loan of English 'woah', but adapted both in spelling and pronunciation.
Finnish doesn't have the [w] consonant natively, so it's approximated by a v,
and the ou is a close approximation of English [oʊ].
26: Nyt lähden tanssimaan
27: Niinku cha cha cha
"I head towards dance floor like a cha cha cha" (YLE)
"I head to the dancefloor like the cha cha cha" (mine)
28: Enkä pelkää-kään tätä maailmaa
"And this world ain't making me scared no more" (YLE)
"And I don't fear this world after all" (mine)
Enkä is hard to gloss succintly, but it's kind of like a combination of the negative verb ei and the conjunction ja: 'and I do not'.
Maailma 'world' is technically a compound of maa 'ground' and ilma 'air', although it's no longer interpreted as such.
It's often (at least in my dialect) pronounced with a short a, as mailma, because that's one syllable fewer and thus ever so slightly easier and quicker to say;
but in the song, it's clearly sung with a syllable break between the maa and the ilma.
This verse also includes one of the common inconsistencies in Finnish spelling:
the phenomenon called boundary gemination, which is a remnant of a now-lost consonant that still appears as a lengthening of the following consonant.
Here it is in the word pelkääkään, and the boundary is between the verb itself and the -kään clitic: it's pronounced pelkääkkään in most dialects, including the song.
29: Niinku cha cha cha
30: Kun mä kaadan päälleni samppanjaa
"Like a cha cha cha when champagne all over myself I pour" (YLE)
"When I pour champagne all over myself" (mine)
The word samppanja, 'champagne', is written with an ordinary s, not an š or sh.
This is allowed: it's an assimilated loanword, and thus can be written and pronounced according to ordinary rules, and ordinarily Finnish doesn't have the [ʃ] "sh" sound.
However, Käärijä sings it with an [ʃ] anyway!
31: Cha cha cha
32: Toinen silmä jo karsastaa
"One eye keeps turning crossed too far" (YLE)
"One of my eyes keeps turning to the side" (mine)
33: Ja puhe sammaltaa
34: Kun tää toinen puoli must vallan saa
"And talking is so hard when this different side of me does its part" (YLE)
"And my speech is getting slurred when this other side of me takes hold" (mine)
Tää is one of those colloquial forms of standard tämä,
and must is a shortened form of musta, which is a colloquial form of minusta.
35: Cha cha cha
36: En oo arkena tää mies laisinkaan, en oo
"I don't usually go and drop my guard, not me" (YLE)
"I'm not usually like this," (mine)
37: Mut tänään oon se mies, tänään oon se mies
"But now I am that guy, now I am that guy" (YLE)
"But today I am (like this (uninhibited and dancing))" (mine)
Mut is a shortened form of standard mutta, and oon is a colloquial form of standard olen.
38: Nyt lähden tanssimaan
39: Niinku cha cha cha
40: Enkä pelkää-kään tätä maailmaa
41: Niinku cha cha cha
42: Kun mä kaadan päälleni samppanjaa
43: Niinku cha cha cha
44: (Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha)
45: Niinku cha cha cha
46: (Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha)
47: Cha cha cha cha cha cha cha
Quick notes on the Finnish language itself
If you're unfamiliar with it, you might have heard that Finnish is "one of the hardest languages to learn". I don't think this is accurate – kids learn it all the time, as do immigrants – but it does work quite differently from English, having a different way of encoding information. It has a lot of inflection, like Latin and most of Europe's languages apart from English, which leave it with a freedom to play with word order and fit into a meter like required in song.
It also has a small sound inventory, when compared with most European languages: there are only 13 native consonant sounds (although most speakers, especially younger ones like Käärijä, knowing how to pronounce more for loanwords – most of the consonants of English aren't a problem), and 8 vowel sounds. (Interestingly, the [t͡ʃ] sound of "cha cha cha" is itself foreign to Finnish – the "sh" sound [ʃ] is absent in native words.) The rules for combining consonants are quite strict. However, for what Finnish lacks in consonant and vowel phonemes, it makes up for with the length distinctions: both long and short consonands and vowels are distinguished, and vowels can be combined into diphthongs in a whole manner of interesting ways that learners may find hard to pronounce or distinguish. The writing system is comparatively simple, though, following the phonetics of speech quite closely – although not perfectly, especially when non-standard speech is concerned.
Käärijä is from the capital region of Finland (born in Helsinki, raised in neighboring Vantaa), so he speaks and sings with the typical born-in-the-90s capital region dialect. Compared with the standard language, the capital dialect is (in relevant part) characterized by words shortened from the end (apocope – especially of final /ɑ/ vowels), and the simplification of diphthongs (such as iä into ii, heard many times). Indicative of younger speakers is the common use of the niinku particle, which means "like", both as in "as in" and as a filler word. (Additionally, I contend, as an amateur linguist, is that the capital dialect also an allphony of fronting the /ɑ/ vowel phoneme into [a] in some circumstances. This is all quite technical – don't worry about it.)
Grammatically, one of my favorite features of Finnish is the partitive case of nouns: it carries a meaning of "some of a whole". For example, in the lyric "kaadan päälleni samppanjaa" ('I pour champagne on myself'), the word samppanjaa is the partitive singular form of samppanja, specifying an indeterminate amount of champagne, with an implication being that it's poured on his head in celebration. Grammatically, the only other cases that owuld have fit here would be the genitive-accusative singular samppanjan, which implies 'all of the champagne in my glass or in the bottle, probably by accident onto my lap'; or the genitive-accusative plural samppanjat, which implies 'I grabbed all the champagne glasses or bottles of everybody in my party or all of it that was in the bar and then poured it on myself in a serious manner'; or the partitive plural samppanjoita, which implies 'I sampled a selection of different champagnes and poured only a couple of specific brands on myself, while leaving others alone'. (The exact shade of meaning is dependent on context, and I'm sure other Finnish-speakers would disagree with me on some points, but the distinction between 'splashing an indeterminate amount' versus 'pouring the contents of a bottle' versus 'pouring the contents of many bottles' versus 'pouring the contents of only some bottles' is clear.) One of the other quirks of the language is the use of the various locative cases: there are a set of six cases (inessive, elative, illative, adessive, ablative, allative) that describe locations within, outside or going into a noun; and on the surface, from the surface, and onto the surface of a noun. For most nouns describing concrete things, these cases are clear, but then some other nouns, especially abstract ones, use them in different ways that aren't necessarily obvious. I'll point these out in the lyrics when we come to them.