Me, mine, you, yours

We've covered "you" (sinä) and "I" (minä) before, and noted the fact that when they're the subject, you usually don't include them in the sentence unless you're emphasising the fact that it's you or me you're talking about:

olen - I am
olet - you are
minä olen - it's me, I am
sinä olet - it's you, you are

Now, just as nouns can be altered using cases to indicate that something is "in the house" using the inessive (talossa), or you are going into the house using the illative (taloon), or something belongs to the house using the genative (talon), sinä and minä can be changed using cases too. However, some subtle differences come into play.

First here is the genative - if something is mine or yours, the ending changes to -un:

se on minun - it is mine
se on sinun - it is yours
minun auto on punäinen - my car is red
sinun kirja on kiinnostava - your book is interesting

A trickier case is the partative. We've already discussed the many meanings it can take. The main meaning is to indicate "some" or "part of" when it is used as part of the object of the sentence. In fact it is the most common case for words that are the object of the sentence. Strangely enough, it is used in the following sentences:

rakastan sinua - I love you
rakastatko minua - do you love me?

The accusative case is related, but rather than meaning "some of", it means "all of". If you want to tell someone to meet you, you want them to meet all of you (I know, you want them to love all of you too, but that's just an irregularity in the Finnish language), so you would say:

tapa minut - meet me
haluan sinut - I want you (all of you - to help out, for example)

With that last one you have to be careful, because if you said:

haluan sinua - I want you

it would actually mean "I want some of you" - which would carry the strong connotation of wanting to go to bed with the person. However, the following mistake:

rakastan sinut - I love all of you

althought technically incorrect, has a very poetic (and passionate) ring to it.

Conjugating verbs - type A

There are six types of verbs, which are all conjugated slightly differently. Fortunately the difference is slight. We've already conjugated one of the few irregular verbs - to be (olla), and from that you'll notice that the endings are all pretty much the same. It's just the construction of the verb stem that is different.

The first regular type of verb that we'll conjugate consists of the verb ending in a vowel followed by a or ä. Examples are puhua (to speak) and kompastua (to trip, or to stumble). We'll now conjugate to speak in the present tense:

minä puhun - I speak
sinä puhut - you speak
hän/se puhuu - he/she/it speaks
me puhumme - we speak
te puhutte - you (plural or polite) speak
he/ne puhuvat - they (people/objects or animals) speak

From this you can see that the verb stem is made by losing the last -a or -ä, and adding -n, -t, doubling the stem vowel ending, -mme, -tte or -vat/vät.

Similarly for "to trip", for which the verb stem is kompastu-:

kompastun
kompastut
kompastuu
kompastumme
kompastutte
kompastuvat

And that's that.

Vocab list 3

täysinäinen - full
pituus - length
huomata - to notice
kaukainen - remote
varoittaa - to warn
leuka - jaw
siansaksa - gibberish, jargon (literally - pig German)
todellinen - actual
puhua - to speak
säännöllinen - regular

Vocab list 2

thick, fat - paksu
thin - ohut
ruler (measuring device) - viivotin
scissors - sakset
herbs - yrtit
to invite - kutsua
dry - kuiva
end - loppu
choice, variety, selection - valinta
a cough - yksä

So, so, so, so

I had a query the other day about niin, siis, näin and noin - what they mean and when to use them.

The last two are easy:

näin - "like this", as in tee näin - "do it like this"
noin - "like that", as in älä tee noin - "don't do it like that"

This and that in the above sentences refer to location and proximity - the "this" and "that" mean that the thing to do or example to follow are close by and some distance away (typically out of reach) respectively.

siis - so, therefore, accordingly
For example, ajattelen, siis olen. - "I think, so I am". The word siis is used in a sentence with a conclusion.

niin - so
For example, olen niin väsynyt - "I am so tired". In this case "so" means "extremely" or "very. It can also mean an affirmative yes: niin on - "so it is."

Finally, there is an expression that uses niin but has a different meaning:
no niin - well then, all righty, now then, so then, okay

No niin, this post is finished.

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