Hi,

First, sorry for writing in english, but my finnish is kind of not existing, yet.
(I moved some months ago from Germany to Finland, trying to learn finnish atm)

I met some other players from countries around the world in Helsinki (players from Estonia, Sweden and China) and wonder, if here are more international airsoft players around?

Also, i'd like to address a inquiry to the forum team:
Is it possible to open a small english language corner in the forum?
I know a lot of people interested in airsoft in Finland

Cheers,

Stephan
http://www.fiassco.net

(Damn it feels wierd writing in English on these boards )

First of all, willkommen! Regarding your original question, I doubt it'll be THAT much of a problem. We got many players from Helsinki and the nearby areas on these boards, many of them either adults or teenagers; experience from other boards (i.e. Arnie's Airsoft) or real life, both "just" civil life connections or in few cases, from international military operations.

Here in Finland we got quite a comprehensive educational system and if I'm not mistaken, everybody is pretty much forced to learn English for atleast some years. Even though some people might have merely limited (oral) skills with the language, it's quite likely that almost nobody you'll find will have any bigger problems of understanding what you're trying to say. I, myself am 17, although I do not live near Helsinki.

Of course, there are people who will understand German (since you moved here from there, I take it you're German?) to atleast some extent; Varusteleka apparently orders plenty of stuff from Germany and I and couple of friends of mine atleast have somewhat basic knowledge of the language.

I'm all thumbs up for an English section. Got i.e. few British friends who actively airsoft; they might drop by and inform about some of their events, for example.

Good luck in both learning the language and getting some team mates. Interesting pics on the site, btw.

Well, first of all, welcome to the finnish airsoft scene.

Most players (from ages 15 ->) should speak at least some english. I take it you live around the helsinki area? If so, you should contact the local airsoft organisation http://www.pks-airsoft.net feel free to ask any questions you might have, either in the topic or via pm.

Warm welcome from my part too.

I'm not sure if you're asking for native English speakers or just people generally talking English? For the last part, most of us do, at least on comprehensive level. Some might even talk German But I haven't met a single native English speaking player in Finland (living here) as of yet. That's a damn shame I think.

My home town has a lot of exchange students and our local Airsoft-community has tried to get people aboard, but so far there is little interest or maybe we haven't done such a good job trying to find those interested... But, we're still working on it!

I have always found the international scene lacking in Finland. I must say I quite like your idea of an english forum here, it might help people find their way around. A small how-to on the finnish airsoft groups, how to get in touch with them and what not would also be, if I'm not completely mistaken, pretty helpful for foreign players. I met an italian chap who thought airsoft is some sort of a clandestine hobby not to be mentioned in Finland

If it'd work out well, a small english " 'sup, this is an airsoft site yada yada" would be neat on the main site. Might be just me too enthusiastic to get some foreigners to play though, I enjoy discussing with people from different cultures.

Good luck with your language studies, finnish is a hard language to learn. Witnessed a finnish lesson in Scotland once, I'd most likely give up, being the lazy sob that I am. Hope you like it here in Finland, great place to be once you get used to all the polar bears in the streets and all that jazz.

Hi,

sorry for the late reply, have been yesterday playing in Kivikko (the PKS Airsoft area). It was fun

So, I'm in touch with the PKS guys, but anyway, anyway thanks for the link @ukkosleka

@BlackScorpy:
Yeah, I'm german.
Its really good, that almost everyone speaks fluent english, otherwise i would be screwed. Guess, another reason for the good english skills in Finland, is that you are not dubbing movies
Its different in germany (and maybe one of the reasons for poor english skills in germany), everything is dubbed, even aliens speak german...
Well, back to the topic now
The Varusteleka guys have also been helpful, as it is a little hard to find specific german gear in Finland. Gear I need for a battledisplay/reenactment project.

@jdoe
I just wanted to see, if there are other international players around.
I can only compare to the airsoft community in germany, which is really international. Most gameplay is held outside of germany, due to stupid laws.
People are playing in belgium, france, austria, switzerland, czech republic, poland or denmark. I have seen a lot of international teams there.

So i wanted to proof, if I meet only few internationals or if there are really just so few in finnish airsoft community.

@Leka_
Well, maybe the international scene lacks, but, we can change that
I know a lot of players from germany that would love to come here for some events, but they have the same problem i have:
Try to gather information about airsoft and airsoft events in Finland without finnish skills. Its nearly impossible.
I agree, that finnish is a hard language to learn, so it will take some time.
For me, its important to learn the language, as its the language of the place i decided to be my new home.


So, to all, thanks for the warm welcome.

By the way, if you'd like to present your gear, there's a thread for it in this forum. You can find it behind the "Varusteet" category. The thread is under topic "Varustekokonaisuudet(kuvaketju)". It's purely for showing your gear, all comments should be posted on the other topic "Varustekokonaisuudet(kommentointi)".

So you've decided to live and stay here? Wow. Not that there are no good reasons to like Finland, but what's your excuse?

Well, my gear isnt complete yet. There is still a lot missing

My excuse is, that I found a brilliant job over here

My excuse is that I was born here and still stuck to the dirt...

Mostly mentally, but sometimes, especially in summertime, also physically...

well, i dont get the whole excuse thing
I really like it here!

Hehe, "I was born here, what's your excuse?" =p

But nah, a lot of (especially the younger lads) sometimes want to see the world a bit, there's no big cities, events here. Unless you count assembly ofcourse, that was huge atleast before the having no life became acceptable.

There's a lot of cool crap in Finland once you know what to look for though, a lot of music happenings in the summertime, especially if you're into heavy music. Also a jazz happening and stuff like that.


An easy fix, although not the best one, is to simply add "in english" links to some of the articles for translations and a few small english infoboxes around the site. Translating a few pages of text isn't a big thing, I think even I could do it in less than 20-30 minutes, and while I consider myself fluent I know there are a lot more experienced people lurking around here somewhere.

Okay, I just made another subforum titled "In English" and moved this thread here. Hope this helps anybody interested in Finnish airsoft. If somebody writes a GOOD article about Finnish airsoft for foreigners (or anybody who can't read Finnish), I can put it up to the main site. I don't currently have the time and will forget about it within two hours, most likely.

Interxion, welcome to Finland & to the forums.

Thanks

Then i can bother you all again

Are here larger MilSim events, lasting maybe even several days?
Those events are quite common in other countries and attract a lot of teams from around europe.
And, if there are those events, are english information available?

Unfortunately not... yet.

The Finnish airsoft milsim-scene is actually growing with speed at the moment. There is, for example, new milsim web-portal http://www.milsim.fi. There is also english section at their forums. There are few real mislim games every year, usually lasting for 24 hours. And hopefully tehere will be more of those in the future.

Reason for lack of long milsim games might be the average age of an average airsoft player, wich is probably 16 years or so. But there is good potentiatal for those games because almost every one in Finland goes in the army so almost every one (over 18 old) knows quite a lot about military style of doing things.

Sorry to bring you down Elukka, but if Nemesis is to be trusted, the average age would be around 13 - 14 years old.

And how accurate is that? I didn't have a chance to answer to that poll. I am not an usual guest at the Nemesis Airsoft website, I visit it only few times a month. I would say that the average age of Nemesis website users is 13 - 14 years old, not the whole scene. But in reality, I guess the average age isn't far from that, propably only higher than lower.

Hi,

thanks again for the information.

I also noticed that the average age is quite low and its hard to find players in legal age.
But i dont complain

Hope, announcements for bigger games will also be available in english

Its because in Finland there is no age limit. So anybody can play, you only have to have a 18-year-old with you when you are buying a gun. Even a written permission does the job. Although there is such a big variety of games, so one can easily find games that he or she likes. Age limits apply in many bigger games, the usual one being around 15.

Many of the weekend-games, as we say in Finland, are completely free of all age limits. Because of that the average age is so low.

If you see me around any of the battlefields around Helsinki, feel free to come and chat. =)

If you have a sign "I am from the internet", i might recognize you

Don't worry, Sir, Pullonpohja is from the Internet!

Here in Finland we have this nice thing called IRC-Galleria, that is a portal where everyone can show their silly faces. Usually the nicknames are the same as in IRC, although there are exceptions, so just look if theres "airsoft" somewhere in the pages.

http://www.irc-galleria.net the first box in the upper right corner is the nickname search box, just type pullonpoh and youll get my face. =)

Edit: thanks Valtteri, you can always make me believe in myself.

scary pictures

Maybe see you on the field

I do not know exactly what Interxion meant by "larger MilSim events", as many large, organized events (Sometimes called "scenarios" or "operations".) take place every weekend in different parts of Finland during the summer, including a few HC milsim events, which are sometimes undergroundish, invitation-only games. (During the winter, one can witness a drastic decrease in both organized events and attendance of regular skirmishes due to the.. well, WINTER ). You can check out most of the events at the pelikalenteri.net (gamecalendar.net) event announcements portal. Unfortunately, it is currently only in Finnish

-StaG

Hi,

i ment MilSim events, lasting several days with a larger amount of participants.
I already found the gamecalender but missing again language skills

Sad, those events are not announced in finnisch and englisch. It would surely attract also teams from other countries

http://www.milsim.fi/component/option,c ... d,174/#174

There. If you are intrested about milsim events i think you cant find eny better source from finland

Hi,

have tried to register there, but somehow get lost in the registration form...
Will try tomorrow with help of a colleague

We are currently translating the site. For now here is the translation of form.
Nimi: * Name
Käyttäjätunnus: * User id (like i use Flash)
Sähköposti: * Email
Salasana: * pasword
Vahvista salasana: * confirm pasword

Hopefully this helps.

yeah, that helped

I would recommend to install the forums english language pack and allow registered users to change the forums language.
As I ran into the same problem again after installation...

But keep me in the loop, for milsim events

Done. Now its possible to change language.

We have translated some of the articles. Rest of them will be translated by end of next week.

Sorry for bringing up an older subject in this thread, but i think that more younger players use Nemesis pages than Leka-forums. There could be a poll on mainsite etc. which asks for user's age. I think that would be more realistic ca. of players age. I think that a major part of airsofift players in Finland have account in these forums, not in Nemesis -webshop.

PS. My last visit to Nemesis's webpages was over 2 months ago.

I know this is an old topic, but I'm an English-speaking player, so...

I'm just curious if other foreign players have maybe joined up since the last post? I'm currently in Jyväskylä, but I've been contemplating a move to Helsinki, so it would be nice to see if I can meet up with fellow foreign people.

Just to introduce, I'm 22, American, have been living in Finland for 4 years, have a good knowledge of Finnish, and have been in the ammattikorkeakoulu since I moved and am close to graduating. After that I'd really love to stay in Finland. I like it here.

Hi Lionheart,

When you're in Helsinki, drop me a line.
Our website is somewhat outdated and we might not be the most frequent visitors on airsoft fields around HKI atm, but gotta get that rolling again.

Cheers

Lionheart if you are still here in Jyväskylä, maby you're should chek http://www.ksairsoft.info/. It's only in finnish but try with Google Translator, just write the URL in it and It'l translate the whole site for you. (yeah I know, it hases lots of mistakes but it's understandable)

And welcome to Finland!

There are also foreign airsofters up North too. If you ever come to Oulu, drop me a PM in advance

Oh, and I'm Finnish, but I know people ;D

Thanks. I know ksairsoft very well. Some of the board members there know me as "TheAmerican" (very obvious nickname... ).

Jdoe, are there many foreigners (or at least foreign airsofters) up in Oulu?

A handful. But there's at least two Americans