Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

[Guest]

Kiitos for help with the word order! But now I have yet another question!

I recently read somewhere that when you use two verbs consecutively, the second verb you use changes form slightly i.e. to say 'we can read' you wouldn't write 'me voimme lukea' - is this right and if so, how does the second verb change????

[Varislintu]

As far as I know, the second verb almost never changes form, because it is the first one that is conjugated. All of these are correct:

Me voimme lukea (We can read).
Minä osaan lukea (I know how to read).
Sinä aiot lukea (You intend to read).
Me emme voi lukea (We cannot read).

I don't know what was intended by saying that the second verb changes ...

[Anchjo]

I'm not sure what's the correct translation for "joutua lukemaan" but verb 'joutua' changes the second verb to 'lukemaan'. "Joutua lukea" is therefore incorrect.

Edit: More examples:
pyrkiä tekemään - pyrkiä tehdä
pystyä tekemään - pystyä tehdä

[Liisi]

I would like to add two more examples, because they are very important verbs (about learning how to do something):

Opetella tekemään
Oppia tekemään

Sample senteces:

Opettelen kirjoittamaan hyvää suomea.
Missä olet oppinut puhumaan suomea?
Haluan oppia ymmärtämään suomea.

But Osata tehdä

[Steisi]

Just a quick note.. If you're in Finland buy "Finnish for foreigners" because it is sooooo much cheaper there than it is here

Also, it explains almost everything I can think of that is hard about Finnish so that even I can understand when to use the partitive plural ^^

Could some nice finn please give us some of the most important verbs that change the second verb to ie. tekemään? so we know some basic ones?

P.S; Sorry for the bad bilingual post

Vain jotain nopea..Kun olette suomessa, ostakaa "Finnish for foreigners" koska se on niiiin halvampi siella kuin englannissa.
Se selittää melkein kaikesta, että on vaikeaa suomesta, joten edes minä voin ymmärtää monikko partitiiviä ^^
Voisiko joku antaa meille tärkeit verbit, jotka vaihtaa toinen verbi "tekemään"? niin me tietäisimme helppoja verbejä? Kiitos!

[Varislintu]

I'm not sure what's the correct translation for "joutua lukemaan" but verb 'joutua' changes the second verb to 'lukemaan'. "Joutua lukea" is therefore incorrect.

Edit: More examples:
pyrkiä tekemään - pyrkiä tehdä
pystyä tekemään - pystyä tehdä

Oh yes I see, that is probably what was meant by what Guest (I'm guessing Loobs) had read. I didn't even come to think of that . Indeed, for Finnish not to be too easy in foreigners eyes, the second verb in some cases does change into the -maan/-mään form, instead of being in the basic form (I apologise for the lack of correct terms ). What the rule is, I've happily forgotten though.

Stacy, I'll post some examples of these verb combinations later (unless someone else beats me to it). The Finnish translation of your message was impressive, but do you want me to correct a couple of mistakes in it?
*feels her fingers itch and expectantly fumbles her keyboard*

[Steisi]

Of course! Thanks a lot, I'd be really grateful

Totta kai! Kiitos paljon, Olisin tosi kiitollinen

(I'm on a roll today.. )

[Liisi]

Can anyone think of a rule, what kind of verbs require the ending -maan/-mään? I can't... but I suggest we all try to come up with examples and create as long a list as possible.

Keksiikö joku säännön sille, minkälaiset verbit vaativat päätteekseen -maan/-mään? Minä en... mutta ehdottaisin, että yritämme kaikki keksiä esimerkkejä ja koota niistä mahdollisimman pitkän listan.

I wanted to post bilingually, too!

Minäkin halusin kirjoittaa kaksikielisesti!

[Varislintu]

I'm pretty sure there is a rule, I have a vague memory of having had to learn it once. Unfortunately I've thrown all my old Finnish excercise books away...

Olen melko varma että on olemassa sääntö, minulla on häilyvä muistikuva että olen joskus joutunut opettelemaan sen. Valitettavasti olen heittänyt pois kaikki vanhat suomen kielen oppikirjani...

Stacy, here's your post corrected (feel free to ask if the changes make no sense ):

Vain jotain nopeaa.. Kun olette Suomessa, ostakaa "Finnish for foreigners" koska se on niiiin paljon halvempi siellä kuin Englannissa.
Se selittää melkein kaiken, mikä on vaikeaa suomessa, joten jopa minä voin ymmärtää monikko partitiiviä ^^
Voisiko joku antaa meille tärkeimmät verbit, jotka vaihtavat ["vaihtaa" was correct spoken language] toisen verbin muotoon "tekemään"? niin me tietäisimme helppoja verbejä? Kiitos!

[Steisi]

Thanks, it was better than I thought
Kiitos, se oli parempi kuin uskoin

By the way, FfF says: "Forms like syömään, tanssimaan express what people will go and do. They occur in connection with verbs of motion like mennä and tulla."

en voi käännä tuo suomeen Anteeksi

It also says on other forms: "syömässä. nukkumässä are usually in connection with the verb olla, to express in what action people are engaged in at the moment referred to"

Hope that helps

[CoBB]

No, mä oon saapunut tähänkin. Pieni esittäytyminen: minä olen unkarilainen ja en puhu yhtään suomea. Okei, vain vähän... Tietenkin haluaisin oppia ainakan pari uusia sanoja (tai lisää tästä kauniista kielistä jos se on mahdollista ).

[Steisi]

Welcome! Hopefully we can make this thread more popular, now that more people want to learn finnish Nothing happens for long periods of time o.O hehe

Tervetuloa! Toivottavasti me voimme tehdä tämän threadin suositummaksi, nyt kun lisää ihmisia haluavat oppia suomea Mitään ei tapahdu pitkään aikaan o.O hehe

[CoBB]

Minäkin toivon niin. Unfortunately I can't really keep talking in Finnish for a long time, thanks to my limited vocabulary. But that shall change!

[Varislintu]

That list about the -maan/-mään verbs is still undone, it seems (I know it was I who promised to do it). Well I'll start it right now then.

This is a list of combinations of two verbs that require the last verb to be in the -maan/-mään form. The first verb is in basic form.

Joutua tekemään - Be required to do/ Be forced to do
Oppia tekemään - Learn to do
Oppia lukemaan - Learn how to read
Pakottaa tekemään - Force to do
Mennä tekemään - Go to do/Go and do

I'll add more to it later (others can feel free to do that, too )

BTW, Stacy and COBB the Generous and all others following this thread, would you like to have something more happen here than just questions and answers? I mean, would you like to see lessons, excersises, vocabularies or perhaps short texts (in Finnish) posted here, or do you get enough of that in real life studies ?

[CoBB]

I don't study it in real life actually, so any guidance of that sort would be welcome on my part.

[Liisi]

This is a list of combinations of two verbs that require the last verb to be in the -maan/-mään form.

Hm... this made me wonder, why are you talking about combinations of two verbs? Doesn't the first verb alwas require the -maan/-mään form, no matter what the second one is? I mean, not only oppia tekemään, oppia lukemaan but also oppia kirjoittamaan, oppia puhumaan, oppia lentämään, oppia antamaan anteeksi, oppia... well, anything .

And welcome, CoBB the Generous! It's always nice to meet new students of Finnish language.

[geoff]

BTW, Stacy and COBB the Generous and all others following this thread, would you like to have something more happen here than just questions and answers? I mean, would you like to see lessons, excersises, vocabularies or perhaps short texts (in Finnish) posted here, or do you get enough of that in real life studies ?

I guess I am one of the "others", but I hope to speak for everyone that we would love to see little lessons, exercises, vocabularies and short texts (maybe with difficult words explained). And speaking of exercises...
Varislintu, you should take a look at the exercise centre and you could add some interactive exercises there, if you like.

http://www.unilang.org/main/exercise.php

geoff

[maeng]

The -maan/-mään suffix is actually a combination of two seperate components. In this case illative's ending (-an/-än) has been added to the 3rd infinitive (-ma/mä). Here are other constructions "featuring the 3rd infinitive:

laulamassa, combines of the 3rd infitive and the inessive case ending (-ssa/-ssä), roughly translated as singing, engaging the act of singing at this specific moment.

laulamasta, elative (-sta/-stä), translated as "from singing"

laulamalla, adessive (-lla/-llä), translated as "by singing", generally a very useful structure for you to learn

laulamatta, ablative (-tt/-ttä), "without singing"

I'm leaving out the instructive that could also be used with the 3rd infinitive, because it looks archaic and a bit complex.

[Steisi]

I'd love to see some exercises and texts here and such. There's definitely not enough finnish stuff in England If anyone wants I can occasionally write up some simple exercise from the textbook i have although i'd rather not get sued if I can help it
Thanks!

[Varislintu]

This is a list of combinations of two verbs that require the last verb to be in the -maan/-mään form.

Hm... this made me wonder, why are you talking about combinations of two verbs? Doesn't the first verb alwas require the -maan/-mään form, no matter what the second one is? I mean, not only oppia tekemään, oppia lukemaan but also oppia kirjoittamaan, oppia puhumaan, oppia lentämään, oppia antamaan anteeksi, oppia... well, anything .

Yes, perhaps I expressed myself unclearly above. It's not the combination that requires -maan/-mään, it is the first verb. I put two examples for oppia just to have an actual useful combination. It is seldom anyone actually says oppia tekemään, whereas oppia lukemaan is more common. But maybe that just complicated the list...

Geoff, I'd like to contribute to UniLang's databases (excersises for example), but technically I'm not a member, only a forum member, so I don't think I can do that... I would have signed myself up as a UniLang member long ago already, but I the nick "Varislintu" seem to be occupied already and I'd like to keep it . Not that there actually is any member called Varislintu, but that's what the computer keeps telling me when I try to submit the form. The wonderful world of computers, eh?

But I could post stuff here, at the forum ! Let's see what I can come up with.