# Lykka til



## Språkliga Möten

On a comic strip today, Viivi says "Lykka til" when Wagner says "Päätin ylittää tyynenmeren soutuveneellä."

Is "Lykka til" Finnish enough? I assume that it's not said in a serious way and a bit ironic too. In what context would a finn say "Lykka til"?


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## sakvaka

_Lycka till_ is Swedish and means "Good luck!"... 

EDIT: The corresponding Finnish phrase is "Onnea!", or, as Tappahannock will say below, "Lykkyä tykö!".


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## Tappahannock

The other Swedish phrase I've heard Finnish-speaking Finns commonly use (at the right time of year) in a similarly ironic tone is pronounced _klaada vappen_ (sometimes _klada vappen_) and seemed to be nearly always a deliberate pun between Swedish _glada_ and _klara_, the latter being used in the sense of _nykter_ -- a singular improbability in the context of that holiday.

The pun rests on the ambiguity of d/r, so that there _can_ be (though not necessarily) a nearly indistinguishable difference between _klaada_ and _klaara_.  It is often said as though accompanied by a wink.   I use the double-a here to represent the rhythm of the thing, though they would write it _glada vappen_.  It's usually not a typical short Finnish "a" but maybe it's not always a full long one, either.


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## Tappahannock

There's also the this common variant on _lycka till_:  _lykkyä tykö_.  I think it might occur more commonly than lycka till, in fact.

I've never delved into how it got to be that way, but _tykö_ seems to be an archaic word that can be used to mean _till_, or _luokse_.  There may be an element of joke in it that I'm not wise to.


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