Superlatives

Finnish has a reasonably regular structure for the generation of superlatives. You take the adjective X, and add -empi if it is more X, and -in if it is most X.

suuri - large
suurempi - larger
suurin - largest

pieni - small
pienempi - smaller
pienin - smallest

But is it always that regular? Firstly, one of the most common adjectives is almost totally irregular, so you just have to learn it. Here it is:

hyvä - good
parempi - better
paras - best

Then you'll find that a lot of adjectives ending in vowels see the ending vowel change, for example:

paha - bad
pahempi - worse
pahin - worst

Here you loose the ending a on the "most bad" superlative. With the next example we see the first occurrence of the pesky "consonants change" rule - p becomes v:

halpa - cheap
halvempi - cheaper
halvin -cheapest

And with this one the end vowel isn't lost:

iso - big
isompi - bigger
isoin - biggest

So there isn't an easy catch-all rule for superlatives, but they're fairly regular. In fact, they're regularer than English superlatives. Or, to put it another way, Finnish is still ...

helppo - easy
helpompi - easier
helpoin - easiest

Vocab list - trees

The last post was a bit frivolous - I don't expect anyone to learn those words, but I did think they were funny. Here is a list of seven words actually worth learning, as there are a lot of trees in Finland:

koivu - birch
mänty - pine
kuusi - fir
leppä - alder
tammi - oak
saarni - ash
jalava - elm

Moominwords

If you're at all interested in Finland you will know something about Moomins. The television cartoon series starts with a special Moomin song, the lyrics to which can be found here. It's called "Käy Muumilaaksoon" (come to Moomin valley), and contains a couple of words that you'll not find in the dictionary. However, every Finn knows what they mean:

tuijottelutuokio - staring moment
taikapilvikarkelo - magic cloud party

Important vocabulary, I think you'll agree.

Fruits and berries

It's autumn (syksy), which means there are lots of fruits and berries about in the forest (metsä). So today here is a short vocabulary list of common Finnish fruits and berries.

hedelmä - fruit
marja - berry

For some reason the Finns don't think that berries are fruit. They are berries, and that's that.

puolukka - lingonberry (actually a foxberry, but Finns are convinced it's a lingonberry). A red, rather sour and bitter berry that the Finns make into jam, which they then serve with stir-fried reindeer or spinach pancakes.
vadelma - raspberry
mustikka - blueberry (actually a bilberry, but Finns are convinced it's a blueberry)
mansikka - strawberry
karpalo - cranberry
muurain, lakka - cloudberry

omena - apple
päärynä - pear

Singular and plural

The Finnish approach to singular and plural objects of sentences is a bit complicated. In English if I said something along the lines of "would you like the fish", "would you like some fish?" or "would you like a fish?" or "would you like fish?" you would know what I mean without having to think. Of course it's the same for native Finnish speakers offering each other fish, but they don't have the definite and indefinite article, for starters and ... well, lets dive in and learn by example.

Would you like is haluatko in Finnish, and fish is kala.

First case: would you like some (part of this one) fish
haluatko kalaa

There is an extra a on the end of kala because it's in the singular partitive. You're offering part of one fish. In English we would just say "some fish."

Second case: would you like a (single non-specific) fish
haluatko kalaa

Again, the extra a because it's the singular partive. You're offering one of many non-specific fish. In English we'd say "a fish" or perhaps "fish."

Third case: would you like the fish (a specific fish)
haluatko kalan

Suddenly kala is in the genetive case by adding an n - which means "of the fish". So you're asking "would you like of the fish." Yep, doesn't make much sense in English, but it's how you offer someone a specific single fish.

Fourth case: would you like the fish (a specific number, each fish identified)
haluatko kalat

Fish is put in the nominative plural. This is a rather contrived situation so it's rare. You'd have to be in a situation where someone had selected, say, three specific Japanese fighting fish and you were holding them for him. Then when he came round to visit you'd be asking him if he would like the fish (a specific number, each fish known).

Fifth case: would you like some (of many) fish
haluatko kaloja

In this example fish is in the partitive plural. Initially this didn't make much sense to me, and in speech a Finn is probably actually going to use the partitive singular. So this is the case where they're serving whitebait, for example, and your as the host ask a guest if she would like some fish.

But cheer up. A Finn asking you if you would like some of many fish is probably going to say: "would you like some fishes?"

And then you get to correct them.

The Essive Case

In the last post we learnt the days of the week. This gives us an excellent opportunity to learn about Finnish cases. Cases are a tricky thing for you to get your head around as an English native speaker, because we only have two commonly used cases - one for when it's the subject (for example, "I"), and one for when it's the object ("I" becomes "me"). In Finnish instead of having modifiers like "on", "in", "from", "to", "as" and so on, you actually change the ending of the word.

Make any sense? Probably not. So lets plough on and learn about the essive case. This is described as indicating "a temporary state of being." In Finnish you put a word in the essive case by adding -na/nä (depending on vowel harmony). So, Finnish for child is lapsi, and if you wanted to say "as a child" you would say lapsena (argh, as an added complication the i at the end of lapsi becomes an e to "make it sound better").

So, back to our original point.The essive is also used to say that something happened or is going to happen on a specific day. So if you want to say "on Monday" you say maanantaina:

On Monday - maanantaina
On Tuesday - tiistaina
On Wednesday - keskiviikkona
On Thursday - torstaina
On Friday - perjantaina
On Saturday - lauantaina
On Sunday - sunnuntaina

Days of the week

If you're going to find your way around Finland you need to know which day it is, mainly because the opening times of the supermarkets vary bizarrely from day to day.

maanantai - Monday
tiistai - Tuesday
keskiviikko - Wednesday
torstai - Thursday
perjantai - Friday
lauantai - Saturday
sunnuntai - Sunday

Finnish for "day" is päivä. Note that the days aren't capitalised, unlike in English. Some of the days have familiar looking names, and some don't.

Possession

Finnish has a special way of modifying an object to show that it is owned or held by someone. There are the equivalents of the possessive subjects, or you can change the object:

mine - minun or object+ni
your - sinun or object+si
his/her - hänen or object+nsa
our - meidän or object+mme
your (pl.) - teidän or object+nne
their - heidän or object+nsa

However it is much cooler to change the object under possesion. For example:
Ei, olen isäsi - No, I am your father
Voimasi ovat heikot, ukko - Your powers are weak, old man

No articles

Finnish doesn't have definite or indefinite articles (the and a). Instead, whether you are talking about a, some, or the item in question is determined partially from context, and partially from the position in the sentence:

kukka - flower
pöytä - table
pöydällä - on the table

Kukka on pöydällä - (The) flower is on the table
Pöydällä on kukka - On the table is (a) flower.

Don't ask me how we know if it's a or the table.

Vowel harmony

Finnish has the following vowels:

Front vowels: ä, ö, y
Back vowels: a, o, u
Neutral vowels: e, i

Front vowels are, as their name suggest, sounded at the front of the mouth, and back vowels are sounded lower down the throat. A single word in Finnish either contains front vowels or back vowels, but not both (it can also contain neutral vowels). However, if two words are glued together and one contains back vowels and the other contains front vowels then ... well, you do end up with a word containing both, but it's really actually two words, isn't it?

To be or not to be

We had a nice regular verb last time, so now it is time to bite the bullet and learn about the most important, and most irregular verb. To be - olla.

olen - I am
olet - you are
hän on - he/she is
me olemme - we are
te olette - you (plural) are
he ovat - they are

As you can see, it is not terribly irregular - there's the usual n ending for I, t ending for you, and so on, but it doesn't have the same stem for all the conjugations. This verb is an important one - I've used it three times in this post already.

He or she?

Finnish doesn't distinguish between he and she, and uses the word hän for both of them. This has the disadvantage that you can't work out in some sentences whether the subject is male or female - but if you think about it that's actually an advantage. Writing instruction manuals is easier in Finnish than in English because you don't have to use clumsy constructions like "he or she" (and the corresponding requirement to switch she and he around each occurrence), or grammatically incorrect ones like "they".

In fact the only disadvantage to the Finns is that you meet the occasionally novice English learner who says things like "I saw my brother yesterday, and she is doing well." (For some reason they more commonly use she when they should use he, rather than the other way around).

Conjugating -ua verbs

Verbs ending in -ua are conjugated in a regular fashion. For some reason you don't have to put minä (I) or sinä (you) in front of the first two unless you are emphasising the fact that it is I or you who is doing the action in contrast to someone else performing it. Yesterday the verb asua (to inhabit) was on the list, so here it is conjugated in the present tense:

asun - I live
asut - you live
hän asuu - he/she lives
se asuu - it lives
me asumme - we live
te asutte - you (plural or polite) live
he asuvat - they live
ne asuvat- they (plural of it) live

Another typical -ua verb is puhua (to speak), which is conjugated in the same way:

puhun - I speak
puhut - you speak
häan/se puhuu - he/she/it speaks
me puhumme - we speak
te puhutte - you (plural or polite) speak
he/ne puhuvat - they speak

So far it's nice and simple, isn't it?

A simple vocabulary list

Here are some words to get started. You need to know a few words before you can start learning about cases, vowel and consonant gradation, and verb conjugation.

talo - house
minä - me, I
asua - to live in, to inhabit
katu - street
tie - road
puu - tree
lintu - bird

It's a small list, so it should only take a few minutes to learn.