Suomi

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Omzinesý
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Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

I try to introduce Finnish a bit. We will see what we’ll get. I have at least learned to add pictures.

Writing and pronunciation

Finnish writing system is very simple, compared to English at least. The Finnish writing system is rather new, first from 16th century, and after that it has been changed many times. All phonemes (almost) have their own letters. E.g. lumi ‘snow’ NOM > lum+ta > lunta ‘snow’ PARTITIVE. M’s assimilation is written. Letter x is not used, but ks e.g. yksi ‘one’. Indeed, the written language (kirjakieli ‘book language’) is rather far from the spoken one.

P[p], t[t̪], k[k]
d[d]
s h[h][ɦ][x][ç]
m[m], n[n]([ŋ])
l[l], r[r]
v[ʋ], j[j]

Pp[p:], tt [t̪:] kk[k:]
ss[s:]
mm[m:] nn[n:] ng[ŋ:]
ll[l:] rr[r:]

Image

- B, g and f apper only in some loan words. Banaani and gorilla come to my mind.
- It's an interesting thing that d is not a voiced pair of /t/. T is dental and d is alveolar.
- They say the Finnish alveolar s is often heard sh, by the English. So there is only one sibilant, and it has much space.
- /h/ has quite much allophony. It's [h] word-initially, [ɦ] between vowels, and [x]~[ç] before unvoiced consonats, depending on the POA of the preceding vowel.

There is distinction in consonant quantity in Finnish. All consonants except d and h appear long, as geminates. J and v are never doubled either, but they are pronounces long after corresponding vowels. Vauva [ʋɑuw:ɑ] ’a baby’, papukaija [pɑpukɑij:ɑ] ‘a parrot’ In a word with doubled consonant, don’t say the consonant twice - just hold the sound longer. Indeed, two consonants may form a geminate. – Menen nyt. ‘I go now.’ [menen:yt]. N is pronounced [ŋ] before k, and ng is always pronounced long [ŋ:]. Kengät [keŋ:æt] ‘shoes’
- There are some (not written) 'final aspirations' word-finally. They cause lengthening of the first vowel of the following word, e.g. <tuo se> /tuox se/ 'bring it' [t̪uos:e]



There are eight vowels in Finnish. Though they may vary with each other by dialect, the inventory normally stays the same.

Rounded back vowels: u, o[o]
Unrounded back vowel: a [ɑ]
Rounded front vowels: y[y], ö [ø]
Unrounded front vowels:i, e[e], ä [æ]

E, ö and o are midvowels, so they are between e-ɛ, ø-œ and o-ɔ, like Spanish ones. Ä is roughly the English <a> in cat or can. /a/ is a backvowel pair of /æ/, so not as open as IPA [ɑ].
Vowels appear long, too. They are also doubled in writing. The traditional example of quantity distinction is: tuulee ‘it blows’ tulee ‘comes’ tule ‘come!’ tuule ‘blow’ tuullee ‘it may blow’ tullee ‘may come’ ei tuulle ‘it may not blow’ ei tulle ‘it may not come’. In the imperative and in the negative forms there is thus the not written glottal stop in the end.

There are plenty of diphthongs in Finnish. Roughly, if there are two vowels one after another, and one of them is closed one (u, i, y) they may form a diphthong. Äiti ‘mother’ kaikki ‘all’ uida ‘to swim’ suomi ‘Finnish’ työ ‘work’

Vowel harmony is one of Finnish characteristics. There are three kinds of vowels: grammatically back vowels (a, o, u), grammatically neutral vowels (e, i) and grammatically front vowels (ä, ö, y).

Image

The grammatical back vowels cannot appear in a same (not compound) word with the grammatical front vowels. So there are two sets of endings: back and front. E.g. kaupa-ssa ‘in a shop’ töi-ssä ‘at work’. The neutral vowels (e, i) can appear with both groups. Alone they take front vowel endings: keksi-ssä ‘in a biscuit’

Was this enough about pronunciation? It’s complicated to tell, by writing. If you have questions, ask!

Some greetings:

Hei!, Moi!– Hi!, Hello!
Terve! ‘Health’ – Hello! (a bit more official)
Hyvää päivää! – Good day!
Mitä kuuluu? ‘What is heard?’ – how are yoy?
Miten/Kuinka menee? ‘How is it going?’ - How are you?
Hyvää! ‘Good’
Hyvin! ‘well’
Näkemiin ‘to seeings’ – Good bye! (Auf vieder sehen!)
Hyvästi – Goog bye!

Tip.
Suomi means Finland, and suomi mean Finnish. The only difference is that the country name is capitalized, and the language is not. If they must be separated, you can write suomen kieli ‘the Finnish language.

Who had time to read this?
Last edited by Omzinesý on 12 Feb 2012 09:44, edited 7 times in total.
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Czwartek
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Re: Suomi

Post by Czwartek »

Yes, finally something about the beautiful Finnish language! Kiitos paljon! A great and informative introduction. What would be helpful for me is a lesson on the different types of verb conjugation, especially the types of gurund and how they're used, a comparison between written and spoken Finnish, and some complex example sentences.

Paljon kiitoksia tämän kauniin kielen hyvästä ja kiinnostavasta johdannosta. En voi odotta lukemaan lisää.
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Omzinesý
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

Kiitos itsellesi! Was it so splendid?
Actully, there are no gerunds in Finnish. Thus there are plenty of infinitive and participle structures that correspond to them. Poistutettuamme heidät - when we have/had commanded them go off, (mostly a military term, I don't know the exact translation)
pois-tu-te-ttu-a-mme
out-derivational.suffix-causative-pass.past.participle-partitive-poss.suf.pl1

If you want the verb tables, there is not a bad page in Wikipedia - which I may have to look myself at. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_verb_conjugation

I will maybe reach the verbs (some of them at least). But if I begin with principles, I don't believe that I'll go very far. At least there are no so deep lessons here. What comes to spoken languake, I can try to mention some alternational forms during the course. But it's much more complicated to teach spoken language, which I have never studied and which is never standarded. We will see.
Thanks! Ask if you have something special.
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Thakowsaizmu
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Re: Suomi

Post by Thakowsaizmu »

Thanks for the crash course in pronunciation. Its' helpful. Unfortunately I have real school work I have to do right now that is kind of getting in the way of my fun. I'll check back later, though.
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

Toinen kappale – Second unit

In this lesson I’m going to introduce how to form and use nominative in singular and plural, and genitive in singular.

Something about Finnish nouns:
- There are no articles in Finnish, so tyttö means both a girl and the girl.
- There are two numbers: singular and plural thus with is used with exact numbers.
- There are about 15 noun cases in Finnish, depending on what structured are defined as cases.
- English has lost its grammatical genders; Finnish has never had them, even in pronouns.
- Attribute adjectives precede nouns they prefer to and agree them in case and number. So adjectives and nouns are inflected similarly.

The most important noun cases are nominative (nominatiivi, nimentö) and genitive (genetiivi, omanto).
Nominative is the dictionary form of a noun. E.g. kissa - a/the cat, koira - a/the dog
Genitive singular is formed by case marker -n. E.g. kissan - cat’s, koiran - dog’s

The genitive ending is combined to the genitive stem which is not always similar to nominative. The genitive stem takes weak grade of consonant graduation while nominative takes the strong grade in most cases. Originally the weak stem was used when the last syllable ended with a consonant, and the strong stem when it ended with a vowel.

Tyttö – a/the girl
Tytön – girl’s

Consonant graduation only concerns soundless stops (p t k). It appears in the bound of last and penultimate syllable. ( Kanootti – kanootin ‘canoe – canoe’s)

A geminate changes to a short vowel. CC > C, to form the weak stem. This also happens after nasals and liquids. There are no cases where geminates would not change, when forming the weak stem. (The English translations in with ‘s clitic are not the best possible.)

reppu – repun – a/the rucksack – rucksack’s (school bag)
tyttö – tytön, a/the girl – girl’s
kukka – kukan, a/the flower – flower’s

lamppu – lampun, a/the lamp – lamp’s
kortti – kortin, a/the card – card’s
palkka – palkan, a/the salary – salary’s

A simple soundless stop changes as follows.
p > v
tapa – tavan, manner – manner’s (way, manner, habit)

t > d (D is a rare sound in dialects and there are particular ways to replace it.)
koti – kodin, a/the home – home’s

k > ø (So k normally disappears.) (Vowel groups, formed this way, are normally not considered diphthongs.)
laki –lain, law – law’s [lɑ-in]

Between two u sounds k, after all, changes to v.
k > v
suku – suvun, a/the family – family’s
(There is a word perhe in Finnish which means them who live together, and suku is a waster notion.)

In some common words that end – VikV, ik > j
aika > ajan, time, time’s
poika > pojan, a/the boy – boy’s

There are new loan words with simple soundless plosives without consonant graduation.
auto – auton, a/the car – car’s

This wasn’t all about consonant graduation, and vowel changes weren’t even mentioned. But I think it's enough now.

How to use genitive?

There are two kinds of genitives in English: ‘s genitive and of genitive. There is only one genitive in Finnish. It precedes its head and the adjective attributes of the head.
Isän hieno talo - Father's fine house
Tytön koira – Girl’s dog.
Pojan reppu – Boy’s rucksack

In Finnish genitive also replaces some adjectives.
Suomen lippu – The Finnish flag :fin: (We shall, hopefully, handle why it’s Suomen, not Suomin.)

Genitive singular is also used as an object. Thus genitive is not the only object case. Genitive is often called complete object, versus partial object.

Minä tapasin tytön ja tytön koiran. – A met a/the girl and girl’s dog.
Pojan isä rakentaa hienon talon. – Boy’s father builds a fine house.

Plural nominative
Plural nominative is formed from the genitive stem. Its ending is -t instead genitive of -n.
Kissat – cats, koirat – dogs
reput –rucksacks, tytöt – girls, kukat – flowers
kodit – homes, lait – laws, suvut – families
ajat – times, pojat – boys

How is plural nominative used?

Plural nominative functions both as a subject and as a complete object.

Tytöt ostavat reput. – The girls (will) buy schoolbags (for all of them).
Tytöt tapasivat pojat. – The girls met the boys. (Finnish word order is rather free and this could be translated in some cases: The Boys met the girls. as well)

Nainen ostaa kissat. – A woman (will) buy(s) the cats.
This is a clear case, because nainen cannot be object in singular nominative.

For personal pronouns there are special accusative forms for complete object. They always end with t.

Personal pronouns in nominative (in parenthesis some forms of spoken language)
minä (mä) – I
sinä (sä) – you
hän (se) –she/he
me – we
te – you
he (ne) – they

Personal pronouns in accusative:
minut (mut) – me
sinut (sut) – you
hänet (sen) – her/him
meidät (meijät) – us
teidät (teijät) – you
heidät (ne) –them

Personal pronouns are only used, when speaking of people. We refer to non-human things (including animals) with demonstrative pronouns: se – it and ne – they. They are inflected as nouns in genitive and nominative plural: sen – its/it, ne – them(object) (Somebody calls their pets hän. I don't. I have no pets. I cannot. :-( )

Minä tapasin sinut. – I met you(singular).
Hän ostaa ne. – S/he (will) buy(s) them.

Dictionary. These are all words that have appeared at this lesson. Verbs, which are not meant to be known yet, are italicized.
aika – time
auto – car
hieno – fine
isä –father
ja – and
kissa – cat
koira – dog
korkea – high
koti – home
kortti – card
kukka – flower
koulu – school
laki – law
lamppu – lamp
lattia – floor
lippu – flag, ticket
musiikki – music
nainen – woman
ostaa – buys
ostavat – (they) buy

palkka – salary
pankki – bank
perhe – family
poika – boy
puku –suit
rakentaa – builds
reppu – schoolbag, rucksack
suku – family (larger than perhe)
Suomi (Suomen) – Finland
talo – house
tapa – manner, habit, way (to do something)
tapasin – I met
tapasivat – (they) met

tyttö – girl
työ – work, job
vauva – baby
äiti – mother

Exercises: You can take the verbs from the dictionary directly. Some of these can be hard.
1. Form singular genitive and plural nominative of words: pankki ‘bank’, äiti ‘mother’, koulu ‘school’, puku ‘suit’, lattia (lat-ti-a) ‘floor’, musiikki ‘music’, korkea ‘high’, työ ‘work, job’ Note that all of these words don’t undergo consonant graduation.
2. Translate: 1 a high house, 2 high houses, 3 A woman buys a cat., 4 They met me. 5 Father and mother (will) buy a flower.

Image

matto - carpet
mato - worm
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Omzinesý
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

Vastaukset - the answers
Spoiler:
1.
pankki, pankin, pankit ‘bank’
äiti, äidin, äidit (äiti, äitin, äitit is acceptable too nowadays.) ‘mother’
koulu, koulun, koulut ‘school’
puku, puvun, puvut (puut means trees) ‘suit’
lattia, lattian, lattiat ‘floor’
musiikki, musiikin, musiikit ‘music’
korkea, korkean, korkeat ‘high’
työ, työn, työt ‘work’

2.
1 korkea talo
2 korkeat talot
3 Nainen osti kissan.
4. He tapasivat minut.
5. Isä ja äiti ostavat kukan.
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Re: Suomi

Post by Systemzwang »

nominative is nimentö - olento is essive.
Omzinesý wrote: The genitive stem takes weak grade of consonant graduation while nominative takes the strong grade. Originally the weak stem was used when the last syllable ended with a consonant, and the strong stem when it ended with a vowel.
This is not a rule that anyone should learn by heart, there's way many categories that go the other way around.
(opas - oppaan, oppaalla, oppaana, etc, or sade, or whatever, loads of examples.).
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Omzinesý
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

Systemzwang wrote:nominative is nimentö - olento is essive.
Omzinesý wrote: The genitive stem takes weak grade of consonant graduation while nominative takes the strong grade. Originally the weak stem was used when the last syllable ended with a consonant, and the strong stem when it ended with a vowel.
This is not a rule that anyone should learn by heart, there's way many categories that go the other way around.
(opas - oppaan, oppaalla, oppaana, etc, or sade, or whatever, loads of examples.).
Yes, nominative is nimentö. I remembered that could be wrong at 12 o clock PM. But no one uses these Finnish name. Just mentioned them, wrong yes.

Yes, that was wrong formulated, with consonant graduation. It's just impossible to tell all at once. I've considered the etymological explanation for oppaan -case. You see opas end with a consonant, oppaan is something like opasan, and the syllable ends with a vowel, so it takes the strong grade. I have to correct it. Do you have explanation, how?
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Re: Suomi

Post by Systemzwang »

Omzinesý wrote:
Systemzwang wrote:nominative is nimentö - olento is essive.
Omzinesý wrote: The genitive stem takes weak grade of consonant graduation while nominative takes the strong grade. Originally the weak stem was used when the last syllable ended with a consonant, and the strong stem when it ended with a vowel.
This is not a rule that anyone should learn by heart, there's way many categories that go the other way around.
(opas - oppaan, oppaalla, oppaana, etc, or sade, or whatever, loads of examples.).
Yes, nominative is nimentö. I remembered that could be wrong at 12 o clock PM. But no one uses these Finnish name. Just mentioned them, wrong yes.

Yes, that was wrong formulated, with consonant graduation. It's just impossible to tell all at once. I've considered the etymological explanation for oppaan -case. You see opas end with a consonant, oppaan is something like opasan, and the syllable ends with a vowel, so it takes the strong grade. I have to correct it. Do you have explanation, how?
The only ones I know the explanation for are the -e ones (sade - sateen, which is the 'glottal stopoid' or whatever after e, so sade actually has a closed syllable; opas - oppaan might have some s->h->0 thing going (yeah, nae from zbb confirmed, it went o.pas -> oppa.san -> oppa.han -> oppaan

and for words like rikas, varakas, lipas - wash rinse repeat
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Omzinesý
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

Is somebody yet interested in this course?
Do I go on?
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Thakowsaizmu
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Re: Suomi

Post by Thakowsaizmu »

I am bogged down with school work, but please do go on. If nothing else, the pronunciation guide is very helpful.
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Re: Suomi

Post by AK-92 »

Omzinesý wrote:All consonants except d and h appear as long ones, geminates.
Hieman pilkun viilausta ehkä, mut miun tietääkseni sanassa hihhuli tuo keskimmäinen h on geminaatta.
Little nitpicking maybe, but as far as I know, the word hihhuli's middle h is geminate.

Ja miun a:ni kuulostaa enemmän ʌ:lta kuin ɑ:lta.
And my a sounds more like ʌ than ɑ.
ɑɬœø
taylorS wrote: Something about the word "child" seems to lend itself to attracting redundant pluralization.
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

AK-92 wrote:
Omzinesý wrote:All consonants except d and h appear as long ones, geminates.
Hieman pilkun viilausta ehkä, mut miun tietääkseni sanassa hihhuli tuo keskimmäinen h on geminaatta.
Little nitpicking maybe, but as far as I know, the word hihhuli's middle h is geminate.

Ja miun a:ni kuulostaa enemmän ʌ:lta kuin ɑ:lta.
And my a sounds more like ʌ than ɑ.
No hieman! Hihhuli, katoitko Pasilaa tässä pari viikko sitte? "Hihhili, ainoa san, jossa on kaksi hoota peräkkäin, aika jännä. Minen ulos miettimään asiaa, aika jännä." Pekka Routalempi on niin ihana.

Mie muuten piän kunnian sitä et sie tuhlasit ensmäse postis miu korjailuu.
Korjatkaamme siis a:n määritelmää.

Onks nyt hyvä. Ei muuten aavistustakaan, miltä oma a:ni kuulostaa.
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

Kolmas oppitunti – the third lesson, Verbit – verbs

I considered how I should approach the verb conjugations, and decided that I simply introduce them by infinitive ending so that you can see which conjugation a verb is part of.

You seem not to be interested in exercises. I decided to make them once again and make some of them a bit more advanced so that they who already know Finnish would have something to do.

Something about Finnish verbs
- There are four tenses in Finnish: present (or non-past), imperfect, perfect and pluperfect. They are roughly used similarly to English, expect that present contains future, as well.
- Verbs agree subject person and number.
- There is a verb form Finnish calls passive which is not the same as the Indo-European passive.
- There is a very large variation of infinitives and participles. I hope we will someday approach them.

There are three different infinitive endings in Finnish. I shall introduce them in four groups because -da/dä verbs are very different depending on if they have a consonant or a vowel stem. Some verbs like osata and saada are inflected very similarly in present but they still belong to other groups.

-a/ä –verbs This is the largest verb group in Finnish.

Kirjoittaa – (to) write (kirja – means a book)

kirjoitan – I write
kirjoitat – you write
kirjoittaa – writes
kirjoitamme – we write
kirjoitatte – you write
kirjoittavat – write

Lukea – (to) read
luen – luet
luet – lukee
lukee – reads
luemme – we read
luette – you read
lukevat – read

So person endings are:
sg1 -n
sg2 -t
sg3 vowel lengthening
pl1 -mme
pl2 -tte
pl3 –vat/vät

Infinitive and third person endings take the strong grade and first and second person take the weak grade.


-da/dä –verbs
This ending is combined to a diphthong or a long vowel, which are often considered similar.

Syödä – (to) eat

Syön – I eat
syöt – you eat
syö - eats
syömme – we eat
syötte – you eat
syövät – eat


Saada – (to) get, (to) be allowed

Saan – I get
saat – you get
saa – gets
saamme – we get
saatte –you get
saavat - (they) get


The endings are similar to a/ä group. But a diphthong cannot of course be lengthened again in sg3.
So person endings are:
sg1 -n
sg2 -t
sg3 nothing
pl1 -mme
pl2 -tte
pl3 –vat/vät


Da/dä can also be combined to a consonant stem, though then it usually assimilates with the preceding consonant. There are much fewer da/dä verbs, but they are very common.

The infinitive ending da/dä assimilates with final consonants: n, l, r, and before s changes to ta/tä.
As you can see, there is a vowel e between the stem and the person endings.

Pur-ra – (to) bite

pur-e-n – I bite
pur-e-t – you bite
pur-e-e – bites
pur-e-mme – we bite
pur-e-tte – you bite
pur-e-vat – they bite


I give the verb olla ‘to be’ as another example:

Ol-la – (to) be

ol-en – I am
ol-e-t – you are
on – is (irregular)
ol-e-mme – we are
ol-e-tte – you are
o-vat – are (irregular)

So the verb olla is irregular in the third person forms.

Teh-dä – (to) do/(to) make
te-e-n – I do
te-e-t – you do
tek-e-e – does
te-e-mme – we do
te-e-tte – you do
tek-e-vät – they do

As you can see, the verb tehdä is not inflected very agglutinatively. Consonant graduation of k appears. The strong stem of the verb is tek- and the weak stem te-. K disappears in the weak stem as we learned in the previous lesson. To form present tense we have to add vowel e between the stem and the person endings.
So teen ‘I do’ is formed te-e-n, and tekee ‘does’ tek-e-e
In infinitive k changes to h before the infinitive ending -dä.

The person endings are similar to a/ä group.
So person endings are:
sg1 -n
sg2 -t
sg3 vowel lengthening
pl1 -mme
pl2 -tte
pl3 -vat
If there is consonant graduation in the stem, infinitive and third person take the strong grade.


-ta/tä verbs

Osata – (to) be able, (to) have the skills to do something
Osa-a-n
osa-a-t
osa-a
osa-a-mme
osa-a-tte
osa-a-vat

Halu-ta – (to) want
halu-a-n – I want
halu-a-a – wants
halu-a-mme – we want
halu-a-tte – you want
halu-a-vat – want

Tavata – (to) meet
tapaan – I meet
tapaat – you meet
tapaa – meets
tapaamme – we meet
tapaatte – you meet
tapaavat – they meet

As you can see, ta/tä verbs take an augment a/ä between the stem and the endings in present. In ta/tä verbs there is strong grade in all finite forms and weak grade in infinitive.

There are a few odd verbs in Finnish like tarvita ‘to need’ that are inflected more difficultly.


How to use the verb forms?

Finnish is a subject-drop-language in the first and second person. So Teen. ‘I do.’ or Nukumme. ‘We sleep.’ are complete sentences. But in the third person we always need a subject. Hän tekee. ‘She does.’ He nukkuvat. ‘They sleep.’
But modal subjects are not used. On kaunis sää. ‘It is beautiful weather.’


The negative verb.
There is traditionally a negative verb in Uralic languages. It can rather easily be translated don’t.

En – I don’t
et – you don’t
ei – doesn’t
emme – we don’t
ette – you don’t
eivät – they don’t

You can think that there is a weak stem e- and a strong stem ei-

The negative verb is used with the weak stem of the main verb. You get it when you leave out -n of the first person form. E.g. nukkua ‘to sleep’ nukun ‘I sleep’ En nuku. ‘I don’t sleep.’ This verb stem takes a glottal stop in its end. So if you add e.g. the clitic particle –kaan/kään ‘even/also’ into the stem, En nukukaan ‘I don’t even sleep.’ is pronounced [en nukuk:aan]. So the first consonant of the particle gets long.

There are no other negative words in Finnish. So you always have to use the negative verb in a negative sentence.

Some differences between spoken and written Finnish verb forms

- (Short) personal pronouns are often used, while written language leaves them out. “Mä sanon” instead of just: “sanon”.
- Singular third person form is used instead of the corresponding plural form. He menevät > ne menee
- The Finnish passive (not learned yet) and the personal pronoun is used instead of plural first person form. Menemme > me mennään. (Similarly to French Vous allons > On va.)
- a/ä infinitives are normally assimilated with the previous vowel. So nukkua becomes nukkuu. (There is now a trend to replace all infinitives with third person singular forms. I hope it will not stay.)

A tip: how to translate the verb to know?
Osata, normally used as an auxiliary verb, languages, E.g. Osaan englantia. – I know English.
Tietää, - a single fact. E.g. Tiedän, mikä on Portugalin pääkaupunki. – I know what Portugal’s capital is.
- A person very roughly – Tiedän, kenestä puhut. – I know who are you speaking of.
- A thing very roughly (to what it is). – Tiedän mandariinikiinan. – I know what Mandarian is.
Tuntea – a person – Tunnen hänet. – I know him.



Exercises:
1. Inflect the verbs: nähdä ‘to see’, voida ‘to be able to, to have a possibility to do something’ and tulla ‘to come’
2. There are two verbs whose infinitive is tavata. We already inflected tavata ‘to meet’ that has consonant graduation. There is also a verb tavata ‘to spell’ that has no consonant graduation. Inflect it.
3. We can at least make complete sentences now. So translate into Finnish.
A. You will sleep the whole day. (in genitive)
B. I’ll meet the friends and we’ll go together to a bar. (future is present in Finnish)
C. I’ll meet the friends and go with them to a bar.
D. It is nice to meet an old friend.
E. It is nice to kill an old friend.
F. No one knows how it goes. (any one doesn’t)
G. Who can spell the word epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän?
H. If Descartes doesn’t exist anymore, how can I believe the ideas of the philosopher?
4. Translate into English (or German or Swedish or whatever you want):
A. Missä asut?
B. Mikä pojan nimi on?
C. Minusta suomi on helppo kieli.
D. Haluan kahvikupin.
E. Suomalaiset juovat paljon kahvia.


The dictionary of the exercises (the sg1 form of the verb in brackets)
English > Finnish
Anyone –kukaan (kukakaan – even who)
Anymore – enää
Be – olla
Believe – uskoa
Bar – baari
to a bar – baariin
Can – osata/voida
day – päivä
Exist – olla olemassa (be being)
Friend – tuttu/kaveri/ystävä (tuttu – You know his name.)(It’s nice to be with him.)(ystävä – You can trust him.)
To go – mennä
How – kuinka
Idea – idea
If – jos
To kill – tappaa
To know – tietää (tie – way(concrete meaning))
To meet – tavata (tapaan)
Nice – kiva
Old – vanha
Philosopher – filosofi
to sleep – nukkua
Spell – tavata (tavaan)
Together – yhdessä (et. In one)
whole – koko (not inflected)
with them – heidän kanssaan
Word – sana

Finnish > English
Asua – to live (somewhere)
Haluta – want
Helppo – easy
Juoda – to drink
Kahvi – coffee
Kieli – language/tongue
Kuppi – cup
mikä – what/which
Minusta – I think, in my opinion (the illative of the pronoun minä ‘I’)
Missä – where
Nimi – name (one of the main evidence of the linguistic polygenese theory)
Paljon – much
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Testyal
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Re: Suomi

Post by Testyal »

Any language which is not Indo-European is something I am afraid of.
:deu: :fra: :zho: :epo:
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dh3537
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Re: Suomi

Post by dh3537 »

I would like to learn Finnish though I'm afraid of pages like this and this.
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Omzinesý
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

Czwartek wrote:Yes, finally something about the beautiful Finnish language! Kiitos paljon! A great and informative introduction. What would be helpful for me is a lesson on the different types of verb conjugation, especially the types of gurund and how they're used, a comparison between written and spoken Finnish, and some complex example sentences.

Paljon kiitoksia tämän kauniin kielen hyvästä ja kiinnostavasta johdannosta. En voi odotta lukemaan lisää.
Should I still give this? It seems there are no interest in principles.

And if so, can you already form the infinitives and participles so that I just should tell how to use them?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Omzinesý
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Re: Suomi

Post by Omzinesý »

Näyttää pahasti siltä, että ruotsin tunnit ovat tuoreempia kuin suomen. [>:(] Ja sehän ei passaa ollenkaan!

I remembered I was giving a Finnish course. Because you asked for the infinite forms, I will tell something about them. Of course, it has been half a year after the latest post and your request can/must have been forgotten. But I will make this after all.

The Finnish infinitive system is enormous and can be compared to that of Latin or the other classical languages. I cannot discuss it completely, but I will try to do my best.

The infinite verb forms of Finnish

There are no forms called gerunds, gerundives (or any adverbial verb forms) in Finnish. It has only infinitives and participles. The adverbial forms of most European languages are replaced by shortened clauses derived from the infinite forms the language has, or according to another analyses the gerunds are just called shortened clauses. I will follow the Fennistic tradition.

I will first introduce the infinite system (I don’t even try to explain how the forms are formed.). And then, I will give some auxiliaries and their governments (not today).

Finnish has four infinite forms called infinitives. (The fifth infinitive is controversial.)

The first infinitive:
- The short form of the infinitive I
• It is the citation form of dictionaries
• Its marker is -a/ä -ta/tä or -da/dä (or its assimilated allomorph).
 It hardly corresponds to the English plain infinitive (without the to -particle)
- The long form of the infinitive I
• It is formed from the short form above, translative suffix (-kse before a possessive suffix) and a possessive suffix corresponding to the subject person (-ni ‘my’, -si ‘your’, - en or -nsa/nsä ‘his, her, its, their’, -mme ‘uor’, -nne ‘your PL’)
 It marks final clauses, tehdäkseen ‘in order to do’

The second infinitive
 They are the forms that could be called gerunds, so they function as adverbials.
- Its marker is -e combined to the first infinitive minus the last /a/ or /ä/.

kirjoitta-a ‘write’ – kirjoitta-e-n ‘by writing’
luke-a ’read’ – luki-e-n ’reading’ (/e/ >, before /e/
syö-dä ‘eat’ – syö-d-e-n ‘eating’
saa-da ‘get’ – saa-d-e-n ‘getting’
pur-ra ‘bite’ – pur-r-e-n ‘biting’
ol-la ‘be’ – ol-l-e-n ‘being’
teh-dä ‘do/make’ – teh-d-e-n ‘doing/making’
osa-ta ‘be able to’ – osa-t-e-n ‘being able to’

- The marker /e/ is joined to an archaic instrumental suffix -n, which appears only in forms like jala-n ‘by foot’. Kirjoitta-e-n ‘while writing’
- The marker /e/ can also be joined to the inessive suffix –ssa/ssä and a possessive suffix above. Kirjoitta-e-ssa-an
 The both formes expresses a clause that happens the same time with the main clause. These forms can always be replaced by a subordinate clause.
Hän juoksi nauraen. ‘He ran and laughed at the same time when he laughed.’
Hän juoksi nauraessaan. ‘He ran when he laughed.’
Hän juoksi samalla kun nauroi. ‘He ran and laughed at the same time when he laughed.’

• The form with the inessive expresses that the laughing is a progressing and the running an action while it happens.
• The form with the instrumental expresses that the two actions are more equal.
- There is a passive form of the instrumental of the infinitive II which I will not handle.

The third infinitive

- That is so called ma-infinitive, which Estonian uses as a citation form in dictionaries.
• It is formed from the same stem as the infinitive I in the case of the vowel stems.
• The consonant stems demand an augment /e/ like in the finite form pl3 present.
• In the case of ta-verbs, its stem is the same as in finite present.

Vowel stems
Kirjoitta-a ‘write’ – kirjoitta-ma ‘to write’
luke-a ’read’ – luke-ma- ‘to read’
syö-dä ‘eat’ – syö-mä- ‘to eat’
saa-da ‘get’ – saa-ma- ‘to get’
Consonant stems
pur-ra ‘bite’ – pur-e-ma- ‘to bite’ (purevat – [they] get)
ol-la ‘be’ – ol-e-ma- ‘to be’
teh-dä ‘do/make’ – tek-e-mä- ‘to do/make’ (tekevät – [they] do/make)
ta-verbs
osa-ta ‘be able to’ - osaa-ma ‘to be able to’ (osaa – is able to)

- It can be inflected in some nominal cases. (inessive kirjoittamassa, elative kijoittamasta, illative kirjoittamaan, adessive kirjoittamalla, abessive kierjoittaen)
 I am translating it with the English infinitive and particle ’to’, but it doesn’t mean their use would be equivalent.
 MA is an old nominal derivational suffix, so there are nouns like elämä ’life’, kuolema ’death’.
 Because I (badly) told how to use the infinitive II forms as shortened clauses, I will do the same with the adessive and abessive forms of the infinitive III.
• The adessive form expresses by which means the action is done.
Opiskelen tek-e-mä-llä läksyjä. ‘I study by making homework.’
Kulutan aikaa nukku-ma-lla. – ‘I am spending time by sleeping.'
• The abessive form is like a negative adverbial
Teke-mä-ttä – ‘whithout doing’
Nukku-ma-tta – ‘without sleeping’

The fourth infinitive
 It’s mostly a nominalization of the concerned verb and corresponds to the English ‘ing- form’
- Its marker is –minen which it is joined like the suffix /ma/ of the infinitive III.
- It inflects in all nominal cases.
- It inflects like the diminutives
Kirjoittaminen, kirjoittamisen, kirjoittamista...
Kirjoittaminen on vaikeaa. ’Writing is difficult’
Vihaan kirjoittamista. ’I hate writing.’


The participles
Finnish has five infinite forms called participles. When listing them I do except the Fennistic way habit and speak about an active perfect participle instead of an active participle II. I will skip the passive participles because I have not discussed the voice among the finite forms. So, it remains two participles.

Active present participle
- Its marker is –va/vä.
- It’s joined like markers of the infinitive III (-ma), and the infinitive IV (-minen).
 It is used as an attribute like the English present participle.
myyvä tuote ‘a selling product’
nukkuva lapsi ‘a sleeping child’

Active perfect participle
- Its marker is –nut/nyt.
- The marker is joined to the same stem as the infinitive I. The /n/ of the marker is assimilated to preceding consonant like the /t/ of the infinitive.
• But in the case of ta-verbs the /n/ of the marker is geminated. (Historically osat-nut)
kirjoitta-a ‘write’ – kirjoitta-nut ‘who has written’
luke-a ’read’ – luke-nut ‘who has read’
syö-dä ‘eat’ – syö-nyt ‘who has eaten’
saa-da ‘get’ – saa-nut ‘who has gotten’
pur-ra ‘bite’ – pur-rut ‘who has bitten’
ol-la ‘be’ – ol-lut’ ‘who has been’
teh-dä ‘do/make’ – teh-nyt ‘who has done/made’
osa-ta ‘be able to’ – osa-n-nut ‘who has been able to’
 Perfect participles are used as attributes as well.
hyvin myynyt tuote – ‘a product that has sold well’
nukkunut lapsi – ‘a child that has slept well’
kuollut ihminen – ‘a dead person’
 They are also used to form the perfect tense with the auxiliary verb olla ‘to be’.
Olen nukku-nut hyvin. ‘I have slept well.’

Participles can get an object (or other dependents) before it.
kirjan ostanut mies – ‘the man that has bought a book’
kirjaa ostava mies – ‘the man buying a book’
luokassa huutanut lapsi – ‘the child that has shouted in the class’
luokassa huutava laspsi – ‘the child shouting in the class’





I hope I’ll have time to write how to use the infinitives with auxiliary verbs.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Visinoid
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Re: Suomi

Post by Visinoid »

Omzinesý wrote:
Czwartek wrote:Yes, finally something about the beautiful Finnish language! Kiitos paljon! A great and informative introduction. What would be helpful for me is a lesson on the different types of verb conjugation, especially the types of gurund and how they're used, a comparison between written and spoken Finnish, and some complex example sentences.

Paljon kiitoksia tämän kauniin kielen hyvästä ja kiinnostavasta johdannosta. En voi odotta lukemaan lisää.
Should I still give this? It seems there are no interest in principles.

And if so, can you already form the infinitives and participles so that I just should tell how to use them?
Continue your courses, please, I'm reading them and learning. :3
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Testyal
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Re: Suomi

Post by Testyal »

I'm planning to go to Finland sometime after my education, so these lessons may be helpful.
:deu: :fra: :zho: :epo:
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