UniLang

Sorry if this has been addressed in an earlier thread; I did do a search but didn't find anything to answer this.

I have been told that both mean "see you soon" (as a kind of goodbye), but nägemist is more common. Is that all the difference between these two words? Or are there subtleties involved?

Thanks in advance!

In my experience they are used pretty equivalently and interchangeably. The only difference is their literal meaning.

Both are declined forms of the action noun "nägemine" ~ seeing:
nägemiseni (terminative) ~ until seeing (again)
nägemist (partitive) ~ wishing/hoping for seeing (again)

Objects of wishes, hopes and commands mostly require partitive case, so these can be often expressed by the partitive word only, without using any verbs: Head aega!, Toredat päeva!, Head ööd!, etc...

Thanks! I am slightly confused now: I recently learnt the "-mine" verbs, where my teacher told me that they are perfect synonyms of "-da" form verbs. For example, I learnt that "ujumine" is a perfect synonym of "ujuda".

But now you mentioned that "nägemine" is an action noun: so, are the "-mine" words verbs or nouns? I thought that to construct a noun, one adds an "s", or one uses infinitive -da form sometimes in the form of a noun (for example, "eksida on inimlik"). Maybe, so I can also say "eksimine on inimlik"?

littlepond wrote:so, are the "-mine" words verbs or nouns?

They are nouns made from verbs - cf English "swimming", as in "swimming is fun".

And as far as I know, there's nothing wrong with "eksimine on inimlik". To my ear there's a very slight difference between eksida and eksimine, as the first one describes what you do, and the latter one describes the action itself.

Maybe your teacher meant the -ma forms of verbs? Like ujuma vs ujuda - I don't think there's really any other difference than that some verbs require you to use ujuma and some require ujuda.

Btw, is the word order really eksida on inimlik? My heavily biased sense of how language should work screams say "inimlik on eksida!!1" but I don't think I can trust this sense with, well, any language.

Also,

I thought that to construct a noun, one adds an "s"

What is this? Can you give me an example? (I haven't studied Estonian for long, so I'm just curious if there's something new for me to learn. )

"Eksida on inimlik." and "Eksimine on inimlik." would translate roughly to 'To err is human.' and 'Erring is human.'. And in Estonian they are pretty synonymous.

Maybe your teacher meant that "ujumine" and "ujuda" are synonymous in contexts such as "Mulle meeldib ujumine." (I like swimming) and "Mulle meeldib ujuda." (I like to swim).

Also, think of actions nouns as the names of the actions. They are part of verb inflection, but they are nouns like any other.

Naava wrote:Btw, is the word order really eksida on inimlik?

Yes, you can do that in Estonian. The da-infinitive acts as a subject then.

Naava wrote:

I thought that to construct a noun, one adds an "s"

What is this? Can you give me an example? (I haven't studied Estonian for long, so I'm just curious if there's something new for me to learn. )

Maybe littlepond means things like "armastama" (to love) -> "armastus" (love) and "ujuv" (swimming, floating) -> "ujuvus" (floatage, buoyancy).

ainurakne wrote:Maybe littlepond means things like "armastama" (to love) -> "armastus" (love) and "ujuv" (swimming, floating) -> "ujuvus" (floatage, buoyancy).

Oh, of course, now I see! I was trying to do something like armastamas and I didn't understand how that could ever be a noun.

One more I'm-just-curious question. You said that eksida and eksimine are "pretty synonymous", but do you think there's any difference at all? And if yes, how would you describe it? I know these are not easy to answer and probably every speaker would have their own opinion about it, but I'll ask anyway.

ainurakne wrote:Maybe littlepond means things like "armastama" (to love) -> "armastus" (love) and "ujuv" (swimming, floating) -> "ujuvus" (floatage, buoyancy).

Yes, that is what I meant! Sorry for the misunderstanding!

Thanks for the replies; they've been immensely useful to me!

You are welcome, littlepond!

Naava wrote:One more I'm-just-curious question. You said that eksida and eksimine are "pretty synonymous", but do you think there's any difference at all? And if yes, how would you describe it?

Well, they are "pretty synonymous" in this specific context, but that doesn't mean you can interchange them in sentences like "Eksida ei tohi!" (One must not err!) or "Eksimine toob kaasa tagajärjed." (Erring brings consequences.).

But the specific example ("Eksimine on inimlik." and "Eksida on inimlik.") - I myself don't perceive any differences between them at the moment. Maybe, if it would be longer and more complicated sentence, I could say something smart about it.