Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

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Äverjeŋkyli.
Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Äverjeŋkyli. » 2018-10-28, 15:39

Hello, I've been recently trying to learn Finnish and then I've realised that I don't know how to say a sentence in a Continious Tense (talking on English grammar terminology). I think in Finnish there's a kind of grammatical estructure for that using the Third Infinitive, but I'm not sure. I would like to build a sentence like "Learning Finnish", and I know how to conjugate the verb "oppia" and to say "suomen kieltä", but I don't know how to construct such an equivalent structure to the Continious Tenses in English. So... How to construct that grammatical structure just to say "Learning Finnish"?
And another doubt: is it "suomen kieli" or "suomenkieli"?
I mean, is it written jointed or separate?
Thanks.

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Vlürch » 2018-10-30, 11:04

Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:I don't know how to construct such an equivalent structure to the Continious Tenses in English. So... How to construct that grammatical structure just to say "Learning Finnish"?

Well, the exact wording depends on the context and there are several ways to say it. One thing to note is that more commonly than suomen kieli, you'd just say suomi; note that the <s> isn't capitalised. If it's capitalised, it refers to the country; if it's not capitalised, it refers to the language. This same distinction applies to other countries/languages that are otherwise the same, eg. Venäjä and venäjä for Russia (the country) and Russian (the language).

Anyway, the simplest way to say "I'm learning Finnish" is:
(minä) opettelen suomea = I'm learning Finnish
The reason you'd use opetella instead of oppia is that the latter often has an implication of completion or certainty, ie. you've already learned Finnish or you're certain to become fluent. The reason for this is the ambiguity of the verb oppia; both the past and present are the same (opin in the first person singular), so using it in the present tense without any disambiguating words just isn't done. If it was obvious from the context that it's present tense, you could use it, but even then it sounds a bit clunky in most cases. There are many other verbs with this same ambiguity, but it's generally not as much an issue which you mean with them as it is with this one in particular.

You could also say:
(minä) yritän opetella suomea = I'm trying to learn Finnish

Or:
(minä) yritän oppia suomea = I'm trying to learn Finnish
However, that might be considered incorrect in formal speech/writing; I'm honestly not entirely sure if it is since I barely ever have to speak/write formally, but anyway, I doubt anyone would attempt to "correct" you if you said it no matter the context because it is in line with things Finns say in real life and use in writing. So, it may not be 100% correct in kirjakieli... or maybe it is. I don't know, and neither does my mum. :lol:

Oh, and if you're studying formally, you'd be better off using opiskella:
(minä) opiskelen suomea = I'm studying Finnish

And of course, you can specify that you're learning to speak/write Finnish:
(minä) yritän opetella (puhumaan/kirjoittamaan) suomea = I'm trying to learn (to speak/write) Finnish
etc.

After all that, now to actually answer your question... if you want to say just "learning Finnish", you can say:
suomen opiskelu
This is the most formal way to say it and, although it doesn't exclusively refer to formal studying, it may have that implication; you can use itse-opiskelu (self-study) to specify that you're learning it by yourself rather than in a formal class or something.
suomen opettelu
This just means "learning Finnish", but it's also the one that implies the most active learning. At the same time, at least to me it sounds like it has an implication that it isn't necessarily 100% serious dedicated learning.
suomen oppiminen
This is kind of passive, but you could use it to refer to actively learning Finnish as well. It's more or less the equivalent of how you'd say "learning of Finnish" in English. So, it could mean that you're passively picking up Finnish or that you're actively trying to learn it... as long as you're learning, you can say it.

If you want to say something like "learning Finnish is hard/easy/fun", the most natural way to say it is:
suomea on vaikea/helppo/hauska oppia
You can change the word order pretty much however you want, but that'd be the default.

Note that while you'll likely encounter something like this, using the partitive:
suomea on vaikeaa/helppoa/hauskaa oppia
...it's technically incorrect. Pretty much everyone (including native speakers) will slip up once in a while with this, though, so don't worry about it too much.
Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:And another doubt: is it "suomen kieli" or "suomenkieli"?
I mean, is it written jointed or separate?

They're written separately.

Äverjeŋkyli.

Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Äverjeŋkyli. » 2018-10-31, 14:48

Vlürch wrote:

Thank you very much for your answer Vlürch.
I come up with a new doubt now: How can you express the Indirect Object of a sentence? For example, trying to say: "I'll read her a book". I already know how to say "Luen kirjan...", but I don't know how to use the indirect object, does it have an specific case declension?
And another thing, how could I say something like "I would like him to teach me Finnish"? I mean, how would I say the structure "would like"? Should the pronoun "joka" be used in this sentence?
Thanks.

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Vlürch » 2018-11-01, 14:21

Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:How can you express the Indirect Object of a sentence? For example, trying to say: "I'll read her a book". I already know how to say "Luen kirjan...", but I don't know how to use the indirect object, does it have an specific case declension?

Finnish generally doesn't differentiate between indefinite and definite at all. You can use the third-person inanimate singular pronoun se as a pseudo-definite article, eg. se kirja jonka annoin sinulle ("the book that I gave you"), but there's nothing like that for indefinite things. Well, you can say luen hänelle yhden kirjan, but that's "I'll read her one book" and would generally be interpreted as meaning "I'll read her one particular book", so still more definite than indefinite; you can say luen hänelle jonkun kirjan (I'll read her some book"), but that's more like "I don't know what book I'll read her, but I'll read her some book".

Also keep in mind, if you didn't already know, that Finnish pronouns are not gendered. So, hän means both "he" and "she", while se means "it"; informally, the inanimate se is used for people as well.
Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:And another thing, how could I say something like "I would like him to teach me Finnish"? I mean, how would I say the structure "would like"?

There are a couple of different ways to say it, but the most "normal" one is:
Haluaisin että hän opettaa minulle suomea.

Just "I would like" is haluaisin; "you would like" is haluaisit; "he/she would like" is haluaisi (but with that you'll generally have to use the pronoun hän ("he/she")). If you want to ask a question about whether someone wants something, just add the suffix -ko, eg. haluaisitko.
Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:Should the pronoun "joka" be used in this sentence?

No.

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Naava » 2018-11-01, 16:57

A few comments on Vlürch's answers:

Vlürch wrote:The reason for this is the ambiguity of the verb oppia; both the past and present are the same (opin in the first person singular), so using it in the present tense without any disambiguating words just isn't done.

Hmm, I haven't thought about that before. I guess it's possible that having identical past and present tense forms make it more ambiguous and so less appealing.

Anyway, here's how I've explained why "learning Finnish" isn't the same as "oppia suomea": the difference between oppia and opetella/opiskella is that opetella/opiskella is about what you do (eg. write, read, practise) whereas oppia refers to learning as a mental, unconscious process: a change in the brain, if you will. Maybe the closest translation to English would be something like 'to gain new information'. So, when you want to tell someone that you're learning a language, the focus is more on what you do (practising, studying, reading, writing) than what's happening in your brain.

At least that's how I interpret these sentences:
opin suomea suomen kielen kurssilla = you gain new "information"/knowledge about Finnish on a language course
opiskelen suomea suomen kielen kurssilla = you're actively practising Finnish (=studying) on a language course

I also agree that oppia is more oriented towards completing the action (eg. achieving a new skill) while opiskella/opetella focus more on the process.

(minä) yritän oppia suomea = I'm trying to learn Finnish
However, that might be considered incorrect in formal speech/writing; I'm honestly not entirely sure

It's correct in standard Finnish, too.
you can use itse-opiskelu (self-study) to specify that you're learning it by yourself rather than in a formal class or something.

Itseopiskelu.*

Also: itsenäinen opiskelu (and opiskella itsenäisesti).

*You need a hyphen if:
- one of the parts in a compound is a (recent) loan word (eg. aerobic-tunti)
- you would have two same vowels in a row (eg. vero-oikeus, ala-aste; but yläaste because ä and a are different letters)
Itseopiskelu doesn't have loan words or same vowels in a row, so no hyphen.


At the same time, at least to me [suomen opettelu] sounds like it has an implication that it isn't necessarily 100% serious dedicated learning.

I agree. It sounds like a hobby or something.

Note that while you'll likely encounter something like this, using the partitive:
suomea on vaikeaa/helppoa/hauskaa oppia
...it's technically incorrect. Pretty much everyone (including native speakers) will slip up once in a while with this, though, so don't worry about it too much.

You're technically incorrect. ;) Suomea on vaikea/vaikeaa ; helppo/helppoa ; hauska/hauskaa oppia are all correct.

And another doubt: is it "suomen kieli" or "suomenkieli"?
I mean, is it written jointed or separate?

They're written separately.

But when you add -nen to make it adjective, it's written suomenkielinen. :)

You can use the third-person inanimate singular pronoun se as a pseudo-definite article, eg. se kirja jonka annoin sinulle ("the book that I gave you"), but there's nothing like that for indefinite things. - - you can say luen hänelle jonkun kirjan (I'll read her some book")

And these are spoken language, so if you want to learn standard Finnish, you can't use these. The latter one is ok if you change jonkun to jonkin, though.

Haluaisin, että hän opettaa minulle suomea.

:twisted: I'm a comma.... lover.

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Vlürch » 2018-11-01, 18:42

Naava wrote:Itseopiskelu.*

AAAAAAAAAARRRGGHHH, this is so embarrassing. My brain farted because I was writing the sentence in English, and in English there's a hyphen... :oops:
Naava wrote:Suomea on vaikea/vaikeaa ; helppo/helppoa ; hauska/hauskaa oppia are all correct.

Huh... I remember being taught in school that the partitive is wrong, but maybe I remember wrong or it was because our teacher was like 70 or something so she taught an old rule. Well, whatever the case, I probably shouldn't try to help people with Finnish since I end up spouting bullshit half of the time. :para:
Naava wrote:And these are spoken language, so if you want to learn standard Finnish, you can't use these.

True. I could've sworn I said something about that, but apparently I didn't.

Äverjeŋkyli.

Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Äverjeŋkyli. » 2018-11-01, 19:16

Vlürch wrote:
Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:How can you express the Indirect Object of a sentence? For example, trying to say: "I'll read her a book". I already know how to say "Luen kirjan...", but I don't know how to use the indirect object, does it have an specific case declension?

Finnish generally doesn't differentiate between indefinite and definite at all. You can use the third-person inanimate singular pronoun se as a pseudo-definite article, eg. se kirja jonka annoin sinulle ("the book that I gave you"), but there's nothing like that for indefinite things. Well, you can say luen hänelle yhden kirjan, but that's "I'll read her one book" and would generally be interpreted as meaning "I'll read her one particular book", so still more definite than indefinite; you can say luen hänelle jonkun kirjan (I'll read her some book"), but that's more like "I don't know what book I'll read her, but I'll read her some book".

Thank you for the information about the definiteness and indefiniteness of a word, but I wasn't asking that. What I meant is: how to express the Indirect Object in Finnish? I realised about something in your examples: you set the Indirect Object "her" (from "luen hänelle jonkun kirjan") in the Allative case "hänelle". Is that the way the indirect object is expressed in Finnish?
Naava wrote:
Vlürch wrote:Note that while you'll likely encounter something like this, using the partitive:
suomea on vaikeaa/helppoa/hauskaa oppia
...it's technically incorrect. Pretty much everyone (including native speakers) will slip up once in a while with this, though, so don't worry about it too much.

You're technically incorrect. ;) Suomea on vaikea/vaikeaa ; helppo/helppoa ; hauska/hauskaa oppia are all correct.

So, if you are able to set the attribute of the verb "olla" in nominative and also in partitive, and both of them are correct... Which of them should I use? Is there any change in the meaning of the attribute if you use nominative rather than using partitive or the other way round?
And one last thing: I'm using the webpage uusikielemme.fi to learn Finnish and it's awesome; grammar couldn't be better explained and it has got a lot of vocabulary, but not all the Finnish vocabulary, obviously. So, for really specific vocabulary, which translator should I use (because Google translator is really useless (at least, for Finnish)(or a paska, if you prefer))?
Thanks.

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Naava » 2018-11-01, 20:04

Vlürch wrote:
Naava wrote:Itseopiskelu.*

AAAAAAAAAARRRGGHHH, this is so embarrassing. My brain farted because I was writing the sentence in English, and in English there's a hyphen... :oops:

:lol: I know the feeling!

Naava wrote:Suomea on vaikea/vaikeaa ; helppo/helppoa ; hauska/hauskaa oppia are all correct.

Huh... I remember being taught in school that the partitive is wrong, but maybe I remember wrong or it was because our teacher was like 70 or something so she taught an old rule.

My teacher (grades 1-4) taught us to write yht'äkkiä instead of yhtäkkiä so who knows, maybe your teacher hadn't been updating her grammar rules either. Or maybe there's some specific case where you can't use partitive? One thing that comes to my mind is monta, which is already in partitive but to which many native speakers love to add even another partitive marker (montaa).

Well, whatever the case, I probably shouldn't try to help people with Finnish since I end up spouting bullshit half of the time. :para:

Nah, you did great job! :D Besides, it's nice to have more people here than just me. I don't have time to write long thoughtful answers very often because I have to write long thoughtful essays all the time nowadays so it's great that someone else can do that or else learners would need to wait for an answer for ever. And you pointed out that goal oriented sense in oppia that I had never noticed!

Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:What I meant is: how to express the Indirect Object in Finnish? I realised about something in your examples: you set the Indirect Object "her" (from "luen hänelle jonkun kirjan") in the Allative case "hänelle". Is that the way the indirect object is expressed in Finnish?

I don't think I've ever heard anyone mentioning indirect objects in Finnish, but I found this:

The category of indirect object is not often used in the description of Finnish, instances resembling indirect objects being mainly classified as adverbials on the basis of their inflection. These adverbials are often marked wit the allative and mostly follow the verb and object. The case ending remains the same when adverbial is moved in front of the object.

Myin kirjan sinulle.
sell-impf-1sg book-acc you-all
'I sold a book to you.'

Myin sinulle kirjan.
sell-impf-1sg you-all book-acc
'I sold you a book.'

So, if you are able to set the attribute of the verb "olla" in nominative and also in partitive, and both of them are correct... Which of them should I use? Is there any change in the meaning of the attribute if you use nominative rather than using partitive or the other way round?

You can use whichever you like. They mean the same, there's no difference in this case.

So, for really specific vocabulary, which translator should I use (because Google translator is really useless (at least, for Finnish)(or a paska, if you prefer))?

Do you need a bilingual dictionary (and if so, which language?) or would Finnish-only dictionaries be okay with you?

Äverjeŋkyli.

Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Äverjeŋkyli. » 2018-11-02, 13:34

Naava wrote:
Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:What I meant is: how to express the Indirect Object in Finnish? I realised about something in your examples: you set the Indirect Object "her" (from "luen hänelle jonkun kirjan") in the Allative case "hänelle". Is that the way the indirect object is expressed in Finnish?

I don't think I've ever heard anyone mentioning indirect objects in Finnish, but I found this:

The category of indirect object is not often used in the description of Finnish, instances resembling indirect objects being mainly classified as adverbials on the basis of their inflection. These adverbials are often marked wit the allative and mostly follow the verb and object. The case ending remains the same when adverbial is moved in front of the object.

Myin kirjan sinulle.
sell-impf-1sg book-acc you-all
'I sold a book to you.'

Myin sinulle kirjan.
sell-impf-1sg you-all book-acc
'I sold you a book.'


First: Kiitos vastaustasi!
(Yes, I know it's probably wrong).
Second: another doubt:
While trying to use the Direct Object, you use the accusative if the action is done in the future and the partitive for past and present, or the other way round?
Third: even more doubts: how is the Relative Superlative (e.g. Current Superlative: "Very Beautiful"=kaunein. Relative Superlative: "The most beautiful"= ?) expressed in Finnish?
And are finnish adjectives pluralised?
Last doubt: is there another way to say "very ..." in Finnish rather than using the Superlative (-in)? I read something about that, basically that you can use the adjective "hyvin" instead but I'm not sure.

Naava wrote:
Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:So, for really specific vocabulary, which translator should I use (because Google translator is really useless (at least, for Finnish)(or a p*sk* (sorry for this)))?

Do you need a bilingual dictionary (and if so, which language?) or would Finnish-only dictionaries be okay with you?

I think a Spanish-Finnish dictionary would be great.
Thanks.

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Mats Norberg » 2018-11-02, 20:31

Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:
While trying to use the Direct Object, you use the accusative if the action is done in the future and the partitive for past and present, or the other way round?
Third: even more doubts: how is the Relative Superlative (e.g. Current Superlative: "Very Beautiful"=kaunein. Relative Superlative: "The most beautiful"= ?) expressed in Finnish?
And are finnish adjectives pluralised?
Last doubt: is there another way to say "very ..." in Finnish rather than using the Superlative (-in)? I read something about that, basically that you can use the adjective "hyvin" instead but I'm not sure.


Ackusative/partitive have nothing to do with tenses. Patitive expresses patial/indefinite amount or incomplete/infinite action of the verb. Accusative objects on the other hand expresses whole things, countable sets or completed action. Some examples:


Poika syö omenan. (The boy eats a whole apple.)
Poika syö omenaa. (The boy eats part of an apple.)
Mia rakastaa Andersia. (Mia loves Anders.) (Love isn't a completed action)
Isä nostaa kiven pöytään. (Action completed, stone now on the table)
Mies nostaa painoa (The man lifts weights -- ongoing action)

For "very" you can use hyvin, kovin or erittäin, the latter meaning extremely is the strongest of them I think.

I don't know what you mean with "relative superlative" nut kaunein means "most beautiful" and not "very beautiful", it's the plain superlative which in Finnish can be formed from any adjective by applying the suffix -in to the inflectional stem of the adjective.


kova (hard) => kovin (hardest)
vihainen (angry) => vihaisin (most angry)
kiltti (kind) => kiltein (kindest)
onneton (unhappy) => onnettomin (most unhappy)
kaunis (beautiful) => kaunein (most beautiful)
korkea (high) => korkein (highest)
matala (low) => matalin (lowest)
puhdas (pure) => puhtain (purest)
ujo (shy) => ujoin (shyest)
raivoisa (furious) => raivoisin (most furious)

Yes adjectives are pluralised in finnish including superlatives and comparatives!
In fact adjectives inflect exaxtly like nouns so you even see the difference.

Nom kova kovat
Gen kovan kovien
Ptv kovaa kovia
Ill kovaan koviin
etc.

Compare koira = dog

Nom koira koirat
Gen koiran koirien
Ptv koiraa koiria
Ill koiraan koiriin

Superlatives also inflect in numerous and case and are used in sentences as other adjectives.

Nom korkein korkeimmat
Gen korkeimman korkeimpien
Ptv korkeinta korkeimpia
Ill korkeimpaan korkeimpiin
Ads korkeimmassa korkeimmissa
etc.

Me kiipesimme korkeimpaan vuoreen. (We climbed the highest mountain)
Annoin lahjan kauniimmalle tytölle. (I gave a gift to the most beautiful girl)
Luokan vahvin poika on Mikko. (The class' strongest boy is Mikko)
Rikkaimmalla miehellä kaupungista on iso omakotitalo.
(The richest man in the city has a big villa)

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Naava » 2018-11-02, 22:04

I don't have anything to add to Mats's explanation about accusative/partitive and superlative. :y: All I have to offer are a few corrections on these examples:

Mats Norberg wrote:Me kiipesimme korkeimmalle vuorelle. (We climbed the highest mountain)
Annoin lahjan kauneimmalle tytölle. (I gave a gift to the most beautiful girl)
Luokan vahvin poika on Mikko. (The class' strongest boy is Mikko)
Kaupungin rikkaimmalla miehellä kaupungista on iso omakotitalo.
(The richest man in the city has a big villa)

- In Finnish, you climb on top of things. You can't climb into a mountain. :) Tree is an exception, maybe because you can imagine you're "inside" the tree when you're among its branches and leaves.
- Kaunein = the most beautiful
Kauneimmalle = to the most beautiful
Kauniimpi = more beautiful
Kauniimmalle = to the more beautiful
- Rikkain mies kaupungista sounds a bit unnatural. It's more common to put the place/group/etc in genitive before the NP, just like you did with luokan vahvin poika.

Mats Norberg wrote:For "very" you can use hyvin, kovin or erittäin, the latter meaning extremely is the strongest of them I think.

I think so too. One intensifier that came to my mind but which isn't on the list is erityisen. It could be translated as "exceptionally":

Tänään oli erityisen mukava työpäivä. - [My] workday was exceptionally nice today.

Spoken language has more of these but I'm not sure if you Äverjeŋkyli are learning spoken or written Finnish.

Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:I think a Spanish-Finnish dictionary would be great.

Hmm, I rarely use any dictionaries but you could try my number one favourite, webxicon.org. I don't know how many Spanish-Finnish translations there are but if you ever find a word the dictionary doesn't have, try to translate it into English instead of Spanish. I have a feeling they've got more English-Finnish pairs than Spanish ones. Anyway, I like webxicon because if you misspell a word, it'll give you suggestions of words you might have meant, and if you find a word they don't have translated yet, it'll give synonyms that have a translation.
After a quick googling, I also found this. I can't say anything about it because I've never used it, but it looks okay.

Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:First: Kiitos vastauksestasi!
(Yes, I know it's probably wrong).

Not bad! You need to use elative here. The stem to which you add the elative is vastaukse-. Some nouns that end with an -s have -kse- in its place in the stem. For example,

kaulus - kauluksesta (collar)
punnus - punnuksesta (scales weight)
jalas - jalaksesta (runner of a sleigh)

And finally: ole hyvä! :D

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby langmon » 2018-11-03, 9:40

To you native speakers of Suomi (otherwise known as the Finnish-speaking Fins of Finland :wink: ):
How many years does it (approximately) take for a child to be able to actively use all cases himself/herself?
this is a reboot

Äverjeŋkyli.

Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Äverjeŋkyli. » 2018-11-03, 21:44

Naava wrote:Spoken language has more of these but I'm not sure if you Äverjeŋkyli are learning spoken or written Finnish.

Well, I'm actually learning written Finnish, but I don't really know if written Finnish can be used while speaking.
Should I learn spoken Finnish also? I mean, if I ever travel to Finland, finnish people will obviously notice I'm an stranger, but even more if I speak written Finnish rather than spoken Finnish?
I think I'm realising which is the answer to this question even while writing this. I've been recently watching videos about conversation in Finnish and... Well, if I pause the video each time I don't know something I finally
understand what the conversation is about, but I also realised that spoken and written Finnish are quite different, aren't they?

Naava wrote:
Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:First: Kiitos vastauksestasi!
(Yes, I know it's probably wrong).

Not bad! You need to use elative here. The stem to which you add the elative is vastaukse-. Some nouns that end with an -s have -kse- in its place in the stem. For example,

kaulus - kauluksesta (collar)
punnus - punnuksesta (scales weight)
jalas - jalaksesta (runner of a sleigh)

And finally: ole hyvä! :D

Thank you :) .
I didn't know which was the correct form of "answer" (it's "vastaus" in nominative, isn't it?).
Another question: in Finnish, the sound for the R sounds a bit strange to me. While watching videos, I noticed that Finnish R is a bit like an Spanish Rr, a long vibrant phoneme, but shorter. It's because firstly I pronounced "koira" as "koida", and now, like "koirra", and it's a bit difficult to articulate that sound. How could I do?
(Well this is only if someone knows phonetics, never mind).
And finally, I would like to leave here a self-introduction of myself in Finnish (because it may contain errors, and I would like to know them for correcting them):
Hyvää päivää/iltaa. Minun nimeni on Pablo, ja olen [my age] vuotta vanha. Olen espanjalainen ja asun Valladolidessa. Harrastan kielien opettelemisesta ja keinotekoisten kielien (tai conlangien) keksimisesta. Olen oppimassa 5 kieltä: englantia, ranskaa, saksaa, kiinaa ja suomea. Pidän kielistä paljon. Myös, pelaankin miekkailua Valladoliden miekkailukerhossa ja... No, se on kaikkia. Näkemiin!
P.S.: Does the word "conlangi" (from English "conlang") exist in Finnish?
Hei hei!

Mats Norberg
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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Mats Norberg » 2018-11-04, 13:00

Äverjeŋkyli. wrote: P.S.: Does the word "conlangi" (from English "conlang") exist in Finnish?


tekokieli

langmon
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How to micro-learn being able to speak a bit of Finnish?

Postby langmon » 2018-11-10, 10:37

By micro-learning (in this context), I mean merely familiarizing oneself with a language without actively trying to learn it.

This differs even from simply not doing any rote memorization, as I am doing it with Spanish and some others. (What I am trying to say is: I don't do any rote memorization at all, not even with a language I actively am learning, like Spanish.)

Now why exactly am I aiming to micro-learn some languages including Finnish, instead of fully learning them? This is related to both of the available total language learning time, and to the fact that some other languages are of even more use in my personal life.

Some words already stick, like kiitoksia, for example. That one in particular is a bit amazing to me, because it is a plural word for thanking someone, and that cannot be found in my native language (German) that easily.

So how to micro-learn the ability of speaking a bit of Finnish, i.e. without even actively trying to remember anything, but by only exposing oneself to the language? For now, I am aiming for very basic phrases only. (Although not asking you for any particular ones, because I can look them up rather easily, I'd say :). Only asking about the "how to learn a bit of Finnish" with the method that has been described).
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Mats Norberg
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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Mats Norberg » 2018-11-11, 14:15

The best way is undoubtably to get a speaking partner and try to have a conversation. I think words you learn that way stick better in memory.
Listen to pod casts and teaching videos if can find such ones is also a good idea.

langmon
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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby langmon » 2018-11-11, 15:36

Mats Norberg wrote:The best way is undoubtably to get a speaking partner and try to have a conversation. I think words you learn that way stick better in memory.


This really can be a way of practice that even makes the words stick.
It's just that speaking of that only Slightly Gaining Person when it comes to Finnish and some other languages, he is looking for a solution that is a bit different (= SGP = myself :)). When it comes to the languages I don't fully learn, but micro-learn only, I do so to know a bit of that language in advance.

By "in advance" I mean: to be ready for a situation where it can be helpful to be able to at least communicate a bit using it. So this approach differs from the other one which would be practicing with native speakers. Because of several reasons (related to my main learning languages, time-related things, and some others), I couldn't currently practice with any native speakers. But I do continue to micro-learn Finnish and others, in fact, speaking of Russian for example, I already could use the bit of Russian that I learned in advance at least one or two times. The same applied to a few other languages, even if at that time, I wasn't using the same micro-learning way that I use today.

(And yes, I know that this approach of learning in advance isn't for everyone. Not trying to "force" anyone to do it my way :), but explaining the reasons why I personally decided to do so.)

Mats Norberg wrote:Listen to pod casts and teaching videos if can find such ones is also a good idea.


This is what I was doing in the past to a certain extent, and I feel inclined to continue it again with my "micro-learning only" languages in an rotating way. Like "now it is one or two audio clips about Finnish, without actively trying to memorize anything, and later is it Polish, Russian or Korean". (By the way, this isn't meant as a Finnish resources recommendation inquiry :) :). Just saying. ).
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langmon
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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby langmon » 2018-11-12, 8:15

Comparing kiitos to kiitoksia

The first one is singular while the second one is plural.
Also I have read that kiitoksia is a bit more informal.
Does it, in addition, also convey the idea of "giving really many thanks" to someone?

Compound words that consist of two nouns

One example I know is ruokakauppa.
There are many others, too.
I was was wondering if in Finnish, one simply would combine "just any" noun with another one, as long as it logically make sense. Or do you Fins :) restrict yourselves to some particular matters, like only doing it when it is about foods and, for example, technology, but not doing it when it is about something else, like botany and arts?

Very long compound words?

In German, there can be very long compound words that consist of several parts. One (real-world) example would be Donau-Dampfschiff-Fahrts-Gesellschafts-Kapitän, which can be written with or without the hyphens. It means: (a/the) capitain of the Association of Danube Steamboat "Driving".

Would you also do anything similar in Finnish? Or do you stick to a maximum of, for example, two or three individual words when making Finnish Compound Nouns?
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Vlürch
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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby Vlürch » 2018-11-12, 20:32

Äverjeŋkyli. wrote:Another question: in Finnish, the sound for the R sounds a bit strange to me. While watching videos, I noticed that Finnish R is a bit like an Spanish Rr, a long vibrant phoneme, but shorter. It's because firstly I pronounced "koira" as "koida", and now, like "koirra", and it's a bit difficult to articulate that sound. How could I do?
(Well this is only if someone knows phonetics, never mind).

Finnish /r/ is generally [r] (a voiced alveolar trill), whereas between vowels it can be [ɾ] (a voiced alveolar tap/flap). What that means in practice is that you can say the <r> in koira as you would say the <r> in Spanish words like corazón, but it's equally correct to pronounce it with a trill. I think you're right in saying that the Finnish trill is shorter than the Spanish trill, though, even if they're phonemically the same. I mean, the Spanish sound spelled <rr> has always struck me as closer to Finnish <rr> than Finnish <r>, as in it being something like [rˑ], longer than a single consonant but not as long as a proper geminate, like for example the <nn> in Italian donna. Finnish <rr> is usually (and phonemically) longer than Spanish <rr>, though, since it's a proper geminate [rː] even for people who pronounce intervocalic /r/ as [ɾ].

One question: do you have trouble with the Finnish /r/ word-initially? I mean, does it even then come out as long or even longer than the Spanish /r/? Because if that's the case, that's kind of weird and I'm not sure what you could do to make it shorter except practise. If it's shorter, though, then you have no problem as long as you can somehow differentiate between the single /r/ and the geminate /rː/ between vowels.
SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:Also I have read that kiitoksia is a bit more informal.

Eh, the most common informal way to say kiitos is kiitti, but that's used ironically a lot and the most common way to thank someone is to just say "kiitos". You can't really say kiitoksia on its own (well, you can, but at least to me it sounds pretty weird). What you'd normally say is something like paljon kiitoksia (many thanks), but you generally wouldn't say that informally.
SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:I was was wondering if in Finnish, one simply would combine "just any" noun with another one, as long as it logically make sense. Or do you Fins :) restrict yourselves to some particular matters, like only doing it when it is about foods and, for example, technology, but not doing it when it is about something else, like botany and arts?

You can combine any nouns (and more) to make compounds, but there's kind of a difference between those that are standard and well-defined and those that aren't. But in theory, you can have infinitely long compounds.

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Re: Questions about Finnish / Kysymyksiä suomen kielestä

Postby langmon » 2018-11-12, 20:41

Vlürch wrote:Eh, the most common informal way to say kiitos is kiitti, but that's used ironically a lot and the most common way to thank someone is to just say "kiitos". You can't really say kiitoksia on its own (well, you can, but at least to me it sounds pretty weird). What you'd normally say is something like paljon kiitoksia (many thanks), but you generally wouldn't say that informally.


"Kiitti", this could be one of the words that are meant to stay, speaking of myself. Sounds like "kitty".

Vlürch wrote:You can combine any nouns (and more) to make compounds, but there's kind of a difference between those that are standard and well-defined and those that aren't. But in theory, you can have infinitely long compounds.

So sticking to the standard ones can have some advantages. Acknowledging that one. And yes, in theory it is also possible in German to go way beyond Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (explained in a previous post in this thread), but this can quickly lead to the Out of Bounds Effect.

(This was an example of a follow-up post to an answer to a question I asked. As for those follow-ups, they do not "require" a second reply.)
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