Flower names in Finnish — five you can nearly read, one you can't

Most of the words on this page will look oddly familiar. ORKIDEA, PETUNIA, DAALIA, LOOTUS and ASTERI are flower names that travelled into Finnish from the same places they travelled into English, so a child spots them in the grid faster than they expect to. That head start is worth having on a first attempt. The pictures beside the list settle any doubt about which flower is which.

Then there is ONNENPENSAS, the forsythia, and nothing about it is borrowed. It is built the way Finnish builds most of its nouns: ONNEN, of luck, joined straight onto PENSAS, a bush. The lucky bush. Say it once and the seam is audible. Children who see that join stop treating long Finnish words as one impossible lump, which makes the eleven letters far less frightening in a grid.

Use it in spring, or alongside anything being grown on a windowsill. The pictures carry the meaning, so a child who has never met the flowers still has something to look at while they search. Reading Finnish aloud is safe — every letter is sounded, and the double A in DAALIA is simply held longer. Print it, or work through it on screen; either way there is no clock. Ten minutes is usually enough for the whole sheet.