Adjectives to adverbs

A fox (kettu) may be quick (nopea), but he runs quick-ly (nopea-sti). In English an adjective is often changed into an adverb by adding -ly. In Finnish the same is done by adding -sti to the end of the adjective in question. Note that vowel and consonant gradation still apply, so you'll find d's turning into t's, a's changing into e's, and so on.

fast, quick - nopea
quickly - nopeasti

hard, strong - kova
strongly - kovasti

easy - helppo
easily - helposti

The last example shows consonant gradation - on adding -sti one of the p's disappears. I never said Finnish would be easily learnt!

Vocab list 1

The key to learning a language is to have a large vocabulary. As a result my resolution for 2009 is to learn ten new words a week. Here is the first list:

abbey - luostari
banknote - seteli
to study - opiskella
soon - pian
lip - huuli
to fix or to mend - korjata
glove - hansikas, although most Finns now use the word hanska
at once - heti
bitter - kitkerä or katkera. The latter is more useful, because it means bitter in taste, or bitter in emotion. The former just refers to taste.
blanket -peitto

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is called joulu in Finnish (derived from Yule), and as in the rest of the western world occurs in December - joulukuu (literally yule-moon). As there is usually snow (lunta) in Finland at Christmas, they don't wish for a white Christmas. Instead they hope that they won't have a black Christmas (musta joulu).

When you wish someone a merry Christmas, you say hyvää joulua - "good Christmas"! The phrase is in the partive, hence the ä and a on the ends of the words.

In Finland the presents (lahjat) are opened on Christmas Eve. Santa Clause (joulupukki - yule goat) travels down from Rovaniemi, and knocks on the door to deliver the gifts.

Another more serious Finnish tradition is to visit the cemetary (hautamaa) to place a candle (kyntillä) on the graves of deceased relatives.

To be able to

There are two verbs in Finnish that mean "to be able to" - osata and voida. Osata means to have the knowledge to allow you to do something (for example tie your shoelaces), and voida means to have the power to do something (for example lift a certain weight). Here is how you conjugate them:

minä osaan
sinä osaat
hän osaa
me osaamme
te osaatte
he osaavat

minä voin
sinä voit
hän voi
me voimme
te voitte
he voivat

Vocab list - autumn

We are well into autumn here in Finland, and the forest is full of mushrooms. Collecting and preparing wild mushrooms is a popular pastime in Finland, so here are some useful words:

syksy - autumn
sieni - mushroom
kantarelli - chanterelle mushroom (a yellow mushroom with a delicate almost apricot-like flavour)
herkutatti - cep, or porcini mushroom (a large nutty flavoured mushroom that looks like a bread roll on a thick stalk)
suppilovahvero - yellowfoot mushroom (similar to the chanterelle, but thinner and not as flavourful)
korvasieni - false morel (a weird fungus that looks like a twisted brown turban-like growth)
rousku - milk cap mushroom (flat mushrooms that exude a milk-like substance when cut)

These lead to an interesting verb in Finnish, and one that I think is unique to the language:

ryöpätä - to boil mushrooms in order to make them edible.

The korvasieni and many of the rousku contain poisons that are rendered inert by boiling and throwing the water away, and so the Finns have a specific verb that means this. In fact, Finland is the only country in the EU that is allowed to prepare these poisonous mushrooms for public consumption and sale (mainly because there would be no way of stopping the Finns - it's part of their culture).

The Elative case

The elative case is the "from" or "out of" case and is formed by adding -sta or -stä to the end of a word. You use it to say where you are from - for example

Olen Helsingistä - I am from Helsinki
Hän on Englannista - He/she is from England
Menet talosta - You come from the house
Se on tietokoneesta - It is from the computer

There are a few things to note:
1) the "k" in Helsinki turns into a "g" when you add a suffix to it. This is one of the consonant gradation rules that I allude to now and again. It's the same for other words ending in -nki. For example Finnish for town is kaupunki, so "I am from a town" is olen kaupungista.
2) Finnish for England is Englanti, but the "t" changes to an "n" when the suffix is added. This is another consonant gradation rule.
3) The word for computer is tietokone - from tieto, which means "information" and kone, which means "machine". An extra -e- is added; this is known as reverse consonant gradation.

So, this started as a post about the elative case, and turned into an introduction about gradation instead. In fairness, the elative case is simple and it's only gradation that makes it complicated.

So now, if you look back at the previous post, you should understand why the word mistä means "from where". It's like the word mitä (what) in the elative case - literally "from out of what":

mistä sinä tulet? - from out of what you come?
tulen Cambridgista. - I come from out of Cambridge

What? Where? Why?

Time for some very useful words, all beginning with the letter M. The first is mitä, which means "what". However, it's what in an indefinite sense - if you didn't hear what someone said, or if you're asking what is going on you use mitä. For example, the verb for "to happen" is tapahtua, so "what's happening" is mitä tapahtuu.

The word for "what" refering to something tangible is mikä. So if you're holding up a strange object in a Finnish shop and asking what it is, you would say mikä se on - "what is it".

Missä means "where". If you want to say "where are you", use missä olet.

Mistä means "from where" - with the verb tulla (to come) you can ask the question "where do you come from", namely mistä sinä tulet.

And finally, miksi means "why". If you have a small child who speaks Finnish you'll hear this word a lot, in which case it's useful to know the word koska - which means "because".