Finnish for beginners

Finnish sounds completely different to - apparently it has completely different roots. When you see it written it looks like a language invented by a bunch of drunk linguists sitting around the table - each daring the next to through in a few more constants or double letters in to each word. Many words are long compounds, most being made up of lots of short vowel-consonant-vowel strings with almost all words ending in a vowel, and the Finns have a penchant for throwing in repeated double letters where ever they can. So sometimes listening in on Finns it sounds like a muffled machine gun of sounds being spat out with an underlying rhythm. Many words sound very similar, so that if you remove just one of the letters out of a double letter the meaning completely changes - a lesson I soon learnt.

Being the culturally sensitive traveller I am I thought I should give it a go, and I started learning a few basic words and trying to get both the pronunciation and rhythm right - needless to say I didn't do very well, particularly as most Finns are such competent speakers of English. However I did find that some Finns are a little shy about speaking English, perhaps as they don't get much practice, so I learnt the phrase for "Don't be shy". One day, Oscar a six or seven year old boy who lived next door came for one of his regular visits and seemed a little frightened of the strange speaking, bearded foreigner. Trying my best to put him at ease I said what I thought was "Don't be shy" which caused everyone in the room to dissolve in to fits of laughter and saw Oscar bolting out the door. When the laughter finally subsided I asked what I had said, and it turned out by not pronouncing one syllable correctly (of course it was a double letter) I had actually said "Don't take a shit !!!"
One can imagine Oscar running home to his parents saying the strange foreigner told me not to go to the toilet. After that I pretty much lost my desire to learn any more Finnish.