Moderator:Naava
Woods wrote:Naava, it seems you’re right that the genitive (or the possessive suffixes in this case) can be a bit problematic
I read that for some reason, the Finnish equivalent of the word ‘face’ occurs only in plural (actually, why is that? I kind of understand why the word ‘trousers’ would be a plural concept, as they’ve got two legs, but what’s the idea behind the face?)
Naava wrote: It made me feel pity for anyone trying to learn this randomness as a foreign language!
So, the correct way to add the possessive suffix to kasvot is:
minun kasvoni
sinun kasvosi
hänen kasvonsa
meidän kasvomme
teidän kasvonne
heidän kasvonsa
You're also right that there's no distinction between singular and plural possessives. That means that 'veljeni' can be either my brother or my brothers. However, it's quite common to drop the suffix in spoken language and say things like 'mun veli' (singular) and 'mun veljet' (plural). That's not a rule though, you can also hear 'mun veljeni' in spoken language and the 2nd person suffix -si is often kept there either as -si or -s (sun veljesi or sun veljes).
Woods wrote:Kiitos uudelleen
It’s really crazy. I’m starting to worry that it may take me forever to learn it
But where is the plural marker?
Actually, I googled ”kasvoini” and got some results, but mostly from the Bible – I guess it used to be like that
How common is it to speak the ‘spoken’ language?
And actually, are the possessive markers changing in spoken speech because it’s better to have a distinction between singular and plural? Like you’d rather know if the person has got one or two brothers?
During your first winter here, you’ll realize that has already happened and your Finnish still begins with “moi” and ends with “moi moi.”
Naava wrote:Is this a good time to tell you there's a few verbs with no difference in future/present and past tenses?
Naava wrote:Btw, there is a difference between plural nominative + possessive suffix and plural genitive + possessive suffix: minun kasvoni vs minun kasvojeni, minun veljeni vs minun veljieni. However, there isn't any difference between singular nominative/genitive: minun veljeni (my brother) vs minun veljeni talo (my brother's house).
Naava wrote:I think it's because 'mun veljet' is shorter than 'minun veljeni', and because it carries the same information anyway.
Paljon kiitoksia jälleen!
then I’m moving to verb forms and after that I think I’ll be good to go
My first winter might indeed be this one; however, I’m afraid that if I book myself a flight (which I’m really considering!), then first of all the summer is almost over
So, let’s say the forms you just taught me will be used in phrases like minun kasvojeni hahmo (the shape of my face) and minun veljieni talo (my brother’s house) – I get that.
Can this -j- really be heard between an /l/ and an /i/?
is there a rule that determines which case ending is put first?
The book is in the hands of my brother:
Kirja on veljeni käsissä.
From the hands of my brother to his teacher’s:
(Minun) velje(n?)stän käsistä häneen opettajaan.
The teacher put the book into my brother’s hands:
Opettaja on laittanut kirjan (minun) veljenssäni käsissäänni.
The freckles disappeared from my brother’s face:
Pisamat katosi (minusta) velestani kasvoista.
She put makeup on my brother’s face:
Hän laittoi meikkin minuun veljeeni kasvoihin.
(Well, I don’t know the difference in meaning between the perfekti and imperfekti yet, so I’m not sure which one to use…)
She removed that terrible makeup from my brother’s face:
Hän poisti täman kauhean meikkin minustani veljestäni kasvojestani.
(part.) She was looking at my brother’s face:
Hän oli katsonut minun veljeni kasvoja.
(I put the possessive pronoun and my brother in the genitive and his face in the partitive, but I don’t know if this is right.)
(acc.) She looked at my brother’s face and then went away:
Hän katsoi minun veljeni kasvot ja meni pois.
(gen.) This book is my brother’s:
Kirja on minun veljeni.
(essive) This mask serves as my brother’s face when I don’t want people to recognise me (doesn’t make much sense but I wanted to make a sentence with my brother’s face in the essive ):
Maski soveltuu minun veljeni kasvoina jolloin en halua että ihmisiä tunnistaa minua.
(Well, I have no idea how to make the construction “somebody wants someone to do something…” Maybe you can help?
(transl.) The magician turned the frog into my brother:
Taikuri muuttui minun sammakkon minuksi veljeksini.
(Or should I write veljekseni, it sounds better?)
Given the way the author writes, I would also ask – is the list exclusive?
I don’t get “Veneeni on uusi.” (nom. sing.) – why the double “e?”
Aren’t there contexts where you’d rather know if the ‘possessed’ object is a plural or a singular concept and you miss this information?
This gets me thinking – it should be okay to take some non-standard grammar from spoken language and use it in cases like this one, in order to add extra meaning, even if I normally speak the written language, shouldn’t it?
Actually, will I come off totally unnatural if I speak the TV/literature language, or will it be okay? I guess I’ll have to add some jargon to my speech as soon as I can, or should I not?
According to the book, “[t]he ending -den can always be replaced by -tten – compare ma/i/den ~ ma/i/tten, este/i/den ~ este/i/tten, korke/i/den ~ korke/i/tten.” But again, it’s not exactly clear what the author means – are the two endings identical, or is there some difference? And if they are identical, which one is more common?
The author says that it can be used “sometimes,” but that the ending -i/en can also be used in all of the examples. However, he says that the latter is “seldom” used “for most types,” but again, he doesn’t say which ones:
It seems that there’s no need for a plural marker with this ending.
I’m also kind of curious where the plural marker -i- goes in the following examples:
ammatti – ammatti/en
tunti – tunti/en
lasi – lasi/en
Is there such a thing as an accusative case in Finnish?
And one last question about consonant gradation, vowel reduction/compression or the other ways in which the word changes when inflected.
The author constantly talks about “the inflectional stem.”
I’m really sorry for overwhelming the topic with one million questions! And I’m just at the very beginning of learning Finnish… Really, is this even possible
Naava wrote:If there's A, O, U in the word -> use A, O, U. Otherwise, use Ä, Ö and Y.
Naava wrote:I've got the impression you haven't been to Finland before?
Naava wrote:May I ask you which city you're thinking of moving in?
Naava wrote:I love to answer to questions
Naava wrote:And one last question about consonant gradation, vowel reduction/compression or the other ways in which the word changes when inflected.
I'll be surprised if this is gonna be your one last question about these for real!
Naava wrote:Hän laittoi meikkiä minun veljeni kasvoihin.
Naava wrote:'Kasvoille' is also possible.
Naava wrote:Only one case per one noun.
…
Taikuri muutti minun sammakkoni minun veljekseni.
Naava wrote:Kirja on minun veljeni.
All's fine here, congrats!
Naava wrote:(essive) This mask serves as my brother’s face when I don’t want people to recognise me (doesn’t make much sense but I wanted to make a sentence with my brother’s face in the essive ):
Maski soveltuu minun veljeni kasvoina jolloin en halua että ihmisiä tunnistaa minua.
Oh I see you had to go the hard way!
Naava wrote: Did you try to say that you use a mask that looks like your brother's face when you don't want people to see your own face?
Naava wrote:Taikuri muuttui minun sammakokseni – the magician turned into my frog
Taikuri muutti minun sammakkoni - the magician turned my frog into something else
There's more pairs like this, but I think it's best you read the verb section first.
Naava wrote:If I were you, I would first learn the standard Finnish until I'm around B1-2. I could read about spoken language so that I would understand people better, but I would try to avoid using it myself. I mean, it's quite a job to learn the Finnish grammar and words. Why would you want to add spoken grammar and words to that?
After feeling somewhat confident with the language, I would start to learn the spoken language in the form it is spoken in my home town. I would definitely study the dialect of the area too, because it will shape the spoken language and because you'll always meet someone who speaks in a dialect.
I would do this and in this order especially because I don't think there's a (good) grammar book or dictionary of spoken Finnish. There are comparisons, charts, studies and such about spoken Finnish, but I think they are all in Finnish so you'd need to know the standard language first.
Naava wrote:(Well, I don’t know the difference in meaning between the perfekti and imperfekti yet, so I’m not sure which one to use…)
It's the same as in English, at least most of the time. There are a few exception here you use imperfect in Finnish but perfect in English and so on, but most of the time you can copy it from English.
Naava wrote:If it helps, I've heard someone say that learning English is like an upside-down pyramid: you learn so much in such a short time, and after just a moment of studying, you can say a lot in English. Whereas Finnish is a pyramid: it takes so long before you get through the grammar and lexicon, but then the rest is easier.
Well, Helsinki :face:
Cause it’s the biggest (indeed, I would even go to a bigger one, but it doesn’t exist in Finland
I’ve also considered Tampere, but it seems too small, so I’m not sure to find enough things to do.
A friend of mine (a Finnish guy) tried to convince me to go to Jyväskylä or Oulu, but the first is out of the question because I don’t like the subjects in the university, and the second one is even smaller.
And this is again something happening in reverse, I guess:
tiede – tieteestä
avain – avaimessa
ajatus – ajatuksessa
what if the action is already done, i.e. the make-up is already on my brother’s face, why still the partitive and not the genitive?
'Kasvoille' is also possible.
And maybe even better?
What if I add an adjective, will the ending that is added to the noun also be added to the adjective:
Taikuri muutti minun sammakkoni minun kaunikseni veljekseni.
or ”kauniksi veljekseni.?
What do you mean??
I have no idea
I’ve got another nice book to learn vocabulary and phrases from, but it focuses strongly on dialect: Colloquial Finnish (Daniel Abondolo, 2012). I haven’t even started using it yet, but when I skim through it, it’s even scary how much it focus on the spoken language while staying away from the official rules.
And I don’t even know which type of dialect it teaches (maybe the author mentions, but I guess not.)
Could you think of some examples when it’s not the same as in English?
When I compare to the way it felt when I was learning French/English (and German, Danish, Swedish which I’m still learning), it really used to feel like I was learning another version of my own language. Whereas this is totally different!
But why leave out -t endings and no endings for nominals?Woods wrote:So, should we not say that there is an accusative case, but it occurs only for the singular object and personal pronouns, and has two possible endings: -n for nominals and -t for pronouns – rather than saying that the term “accusative” is a common denominator for a set of cases, one of which the genitive (there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the examples above and the concept of genitive, or is there one?)
ainurakne wrote:- passive: Ostetaan kirja. (A/the book is / will be bought)
- some infinitive verb forms
- imperative mood: Osta kirja! (Buy a/the book!)
Nice thread, by the way! As a native Estonian speaker, I really enjoyed reading it. And many thanks to Naava for all the in-depth explanations and other interesting bits about everything.
I did not know that! Thanks!Naava wrote:Nominative is used with 'must' verbs: ...
Btw, 3rd person imperative has partitive & genitive-like object: ...
I'll keep that in mind.Naava wrote:Feel free to ask if you have any questions, too! ...because I'm the last person who could say 'don't take the topics created by others and use them for your own questions. :p
Naava wrote:Woods wrote: When I compare to the way it felt when I was learning French/English (and German, Danish, Swedish which I’m still learning), it really used to feel like I was learning another version of my own language. Whereas this is totally different!
I'm surprised you think Germanic languages were similar to Bulgarian. I've studied Russian and it was nothing like English or Swedish imo. I would've thought Bulgarian was like Russian. Can you explain or give examples of what made you think that they weren't so different?
Naava wrote:What do you mean??
This:I have no idea
I don't know either what you tried to say but at least you got the answer you wanted!
Naava wrote:There has been a change, sometimes called T-S-change, sometimes TI-SI-change. Basically every /ti/ became /si/.
Naava wrote:We've got loan words after this change, which explains why you can find words with /ti/ in them.
Naava wrote:Also, some imperfects still have the /ti/ because of reasons, but I'm not explaining that right now because I don't have the time for it.
Naava wrote:avain – avaimessa
ajatus – ajatuksessa
I don't think either of these are consonant gradations.
You see, consonant gradation has the (not so well working) rule of 'closed syllable - weak grade, open syllable - strong grade'. Avain has M everywhere else except the nominative (…)
It's assimilation or something.
Naava wrote:I don't know why some -s ending words have -ks-, though.
Naava wrote:I’ve got another nice book to learn vocabulary and phrases from, but it focuses strongly on dialect: Colloquial Finnish (Daniel Abondolo, 2012). I haven’t even started using it yet, but when I skim through it, it’s even scary how much it focus on the spoken language while staying away from the official rules.
And I don’t even know which type of dialect it teaches
Uh, I don't think it teaches any dialect. Colloquial Finnish is another term for spoken Finnish, which isn't a dialect.
You cannot always recognise the stem, but most of the time there’s at least something that distantly reminds you we’re talking about the same object and helps you memorise the word in the new language.
That means, if you’ve got a command of Bulgarian pronouns, you will very easily understand German and Russian noun cases.
Gender exists in all the Indo-European languages I speak
We’ve also gotten all the scientific language and terms (and not only) directly from Greek and Latin. So has German. So has French. (And I guess Swedish more or less?) And the words are exactly the same.
We’ve also loaned many other words from French and German – the two languages were very popular until English took on.
Pronouns themselves:
аз – I /aj/ – je – jag (sounds really similar) – ich
ти – ти – tu – du – du
те – they – ils – de – sie
Pronominal verbs
Indeed, they are also similar in Finnish. Strangely, this distant language has not figured out a totally different way to lay out these concepts?
And most of all (I can’t really think of examples out of the blue, but) concepts are the same – even when words are different. Maybe the word has changed so much from ancient times that you can’t recognise it or it’s a different one, but then you find out that in the language you’re trying to learn there’s a word or concept that means exactly the same and is made the exact same way (a big warning to those who use bilingual dictionaries: it’s not always the case!)
мечешка услуга – bjørnetjeneste
Naava wrote:I read somewhere that some of the Finnish pronouns are likely very old loans from some Indo-European language
If you're studying the spoken Finnish, you might've read that se is used for humans, animals and objects. My friend once explained that Russian 3rd person pronouns had a similar story, that they originally meant 'that' or 'this' or something like that. Is it the same in Bulgarian? Do you have separate pronouns for humans vs animals or inanimate vs animate?
If I remember correctly, there used to be only two tenses: present and past. Then the past was divided into subcategories, and I think it was (proto-something-)German that was the model for it.
There's also a future construction that is like a calque from Swedish kommer att vara - tulee olemaan.
Proverbs and stories tend to be loaned from neighbours, not necessarily inherited from some ancestor language.
Woods wrote:And most of all (I can’t really think of examples out of the blue, but) concepts are the same – even when words are different. Maybe the word has changed so much from ancient times that you can’t recognise it or it’s a different one, but then you find out that in the language you’re trying to learn there’s a word or concept that means exactly the same and is made the exact same way (a big warning to those who use bilingual dictionaries: it’s not always the case!)
What?
Woods wrote:Got one more question: how are Bulgaria, bulgarian, bulgarialainen, bulgaari pronounced - /'pul,karia/, /'pul,karian/, /'pul,karia'lainen/, /'pul,kaari/ or /'bul,garia/, /'bul,garian/, /'bul,garia'lainen/, /'bul,gaari/? Do the sounds /b/ and /g/ even exist in Finnish?
Iván wrote:Woods wrote:Got one more question: how are Bulgaria, bulgarian, bulgarialainen, bulgaari pronounced - /'pul,karia/, /'pul,karian/, /'pul,karia'lainen/, /'pul,kaari/ or /'bul,garia/, /'bul,garian/, /'bul,garia'lainen/, /'bul,gaari/? Do the sounds /b/ and /g/ even exist in Finnish?
/g/ does exist in Finnish and you can find it words such as kengät, kuningas, gambialainen, genetiivi, etc.
Naava wrote:I also think his /b/ in "bulgariaa" sounds pretty much the same as the /p/ in "puhun". Do you hear them as different sounds?
Iván wrote:This is me saying "Puhun bulgariaa" with the two different sounds. The first one would be puhun pulkariaa and the second one would be puhun bulgariaa.
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