Getting dressed in Finnish: six words in the grid

Run down this list and something stands out: HOUSUT, SHORTSIT and TOHVELIT all finish with -t. Finnish, like English, treats trousers, shorts and slippers as plural things, and that final letter is the marker. PAITA the shirt, LIIVI the waistcoat and ESILIINA the apron are single items, and each of them ends in a vowel instead. It is a small grammatical point, but it arrives free with the vocabulary.

All six are hidden across and down, with a small picture next to every word so no translation is needed to begin. A child reads along a row, recognises a shape already seen at the top of the page, and rings it. SHORTSIT tends to be spotted first by an English speaker. That is real reading in a second language, even though nothing is being sounded out from scratch.

Dressing and undressing happens daily, which is why clothes are among the first sets any language course teaches. Print this beside a real pile of washing if you can, and hold up the apron as they circle ESILIINA. For a child working alone the pictures carry all the meaning required, so an adult need not hover over the page. The following morning, ask what PAITA means while a shirt is actually going on, and you will find out whether the word stayed.