# A-nelonen



## Gavril

Hyvää torstaiiltaa,

How would you translate the highlighted part of this sentence? _

Se ei ole tällä hetkellä mitään muuta kuin pari A-nelosta apurahahakemuksista itse kullekin tuttua ympäripyöreää visiointia.

_
"At the moment, it's nothing more than a pair of A4s [for grant applications?], a vague outline familiar to everyone."


I thought at first that "A-nelosta apurahahakemuksista" meant "A4 grant applications", but then _apurahahakemus _should also be in the partitive, right? Since I'm not familiar with what "A-nelonen" means, I'm a little lost here.

Auttaisitteko?

Kiitos


----------



## Hakro

A4 is a paper size standard (210 × 297 mm). _Pari A-nelosta apurahahakemuksista_ means "a couple of pages about grant applications".

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#A4

By the way, you should put a hyphen in _torstai-iltaa_ (a compound where the first part ends with the same vowel that starts the second part).


----------



## Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Yes, A4 is roughly similar (but NOT the same) to 8.5 × 11 inches, which, in turn, is the standard size in North America.

I have experienced that many North Americans are surprisingly ignorant about paper sizes (A4, B5 etc) which are used in most countries in Europe and Asia.


----------



## Gavril

One other question about the sentence I quoted: how does "itse kullekin tuttua ympäripyöreää visiointia" fit together with the rest of the phrase? If it were separated by a comma, then the meaning would be clearer to me:

_Se ei ole tällä hetkellä mitään muuta kuin pari A-nelosta apurahahakemuksista, itse kullekin tuttua ympäripyöreää visiointia._

Here, "itse kullekin tuttua ..." is a further description of "pari A-nelosta". But, can you interpret it this way without the comma?

Extra Virgin Olive Oil:



> Yes, A4 is roughly similar (but NOT the same) to 8.5 × 11 inches, which, in turn, is the standard size in North America.
> 
> I have experienced that many North Americans are surprisingly ignorant about paper sizes (A4, B5 etc) which are used in most countries in Europe and Asia.



Now that you and Hakro remind me, I recall seeing "A4" as one of the paper size options when you print something in Microsoft Word or similar programs. But you're right about Americans' ignorance of paper sizes, at least if my own experience is representative: I recognize "letter" (8.5x11 inches), "legal" (8.5x14) and "tabloid" (11x17), but not much else.


----------



## Hakro

Gavril said:


> One other question about the sentence I quoted: how does "itse kullekin tuttua ympäripyöreää visiointia" fit together with the rest of the phrase? If it were separated by a comma, then the meaning would be clearer to me:
> 
> _Se ei ole tällä hetkellä mitään muuta kuin pari A-nelosta apurahahakemuksista, itse kullekin tuttua ympäripyöreää visiointia._
> 
> Here, "itse kullekin tuttua ..." is a further description of "pari A-nelosta". But, can you interpret it this way without the comma?


The comma makes it easier to understand, although it's not proper to Finnish orthography. It would be even clearer if you put it this way: _Se ei ole tällä hetkellä mitään muuta kuin pari A-nelosta apurahahakemuksista, _*ja se on *_itse kullekin tuttua ympäripyöreää visiointia._


----------



## reamary

Gavril, could you possibly post some more context, at least the phrase which preceeds this phrase in question, I mean, *what *is nothing else than a couple of A4's? 
Because, I actually think, that "ympäripyöreää visiointia" refers to the _grant __applications_ here, not to the A4's. I mean, this way: _*Se ei ole tällä hetkellä mitään muuta kuin pari A-nelosta (täynnä) ympäripyöreää visiointia *(mikä taas on itse kullekin tuttua apurahahakemuksista ; kaikki tietävät että apurahahakemukset ovat juuri sellaisia).
_Whoever said this, probably thinks that the grant applications are never more than just some vague ideas (and everyone knows that it's like that) and now, it's the same situation with this few pages of "something". 
More context would be really helpful though.


----------

