Re: FIN>ENG/GER pistää päälle

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Topi Kuusinen <topi.kuusinen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


However, I'd be tempted to interpret the Finnish phrase as "the companies allocate contingency money in their projects", meaning that when making a budget for a project you'll first make a "realistic" assessment of the cost and then put, say, 15 % over ("päälle") that sum for any unforeseen expenses that might or might not occur during the project. To cover for the risks, so to speak.


I can't imagine why anyone would use the word "riskiraha" in such a sense, since it has a fairly established meaning (described even in "Suomen kielen perussanakirja") as denoting "risk money" (which it directly corresponds to), i.e. "venture capital" to put in more difficult words (but I would use simple words in translating something that sounds fairly informal).

You're of course correct with the meaning of the word "riskiraha". However, that leaves the problem with "projektiensa... päälle".

Looking at it, in the meaning you suggest it looks like Swedish influence, but I can't think it would come from "satsa på", as the text seems rather informal so the speaker/writer would in that case have more probably said simply "satsaavat". I don't know enough Swedish to think of one, but if there's another Swedish idiom similar to "satsa på" it might be the clue. Or maybe the original speaker/writer really has Swedish as their native tongue and they have mixed the Swedish and Finnish expressions.

Then again, to support my first suggestion, an example from real life: when I still worked in project management it was rather common to try and plan for contingencies and budget both some extra time and money as long as we could get away with it.

In some cases it's possible to ask the customer about difficult or vague text passages - I wonder if it's possible in this case as I don't fully buy Jukka's suggestion but am not too sure about mine, either. The answer really depends on the context.

Cheers,

-Topi Kuusinen, Finland

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