A blog about Finnish language by a person with a Master of Arts from the subject. Here you'll find idioms, funny stuff, and hopefully you'll be able to learn as well. Feel free to ask me anything! // Filosofian maisterin blogi suomen kielestä. Tänne kerään idiomeja, hassuja juttuja ja toivottavasti voin myös opettaa jotakin. Kysy pois, jos siltä tuntuu!
Finnish speakers really look at our own words and go, you know what it's a good word, but now that I've considered it I've decided that we'll have as little of it as we can get away with from now on.
Hi! I'm trying to learn Finnish and I have a grammar question (probably several questions). Finding access to an in-depth language-learning program or class has been extremely difficult and I have weird gaps in my knowledge that I've tried to overcome with grammar workbooks and immersing in Finnish media. Given that Finnish media/native speakers often don't use kirjakieli, and the programs & grammar books I've used have taught exclusively kirjakieli... I keep finding that what I'm learning still isn't *super* helpful in understanding. Like. I'm over here having "Minä olen..." drilled into my brain, while I've never watched a video, listened to a song, etc where anything but "Mä oon..." has been used. I was BAFFLED when I finally learned they meant the same.
Anyway!
In your recent post about Riihimäki, you started it with, "Mulla ei oo"
I am *pretty* sure that in kirjakieli that would be "Minulla ei ole".
So. This is probably a silly question. But. Does "Minulla on" similarly become "Mulla oon" or "Mulla on"?
Also... Any tips for recognizing shortened/informal forms of formal phrases?
Anyway. I've taken enough of your time.
Kiitos!
One of my friends teaches finnish to immigrants for a living, and she can attest that her students are frequently frustrated by the way that spoken finnish and written finnish are completely different dialects, if not downright two different languages. Also fun fact, one of the most distinct ways that different finnish dialects can be identified is what word they have for "minä/sinä". The "mä" you have heard is mainly southern finnish dialects, in some regions people say "mää", "mie" etc, there's surely ones I haven't even heard of.
You're correct that in your assessment, "mulla ei oo" does indeed mean "minulla ei ole", and "minulla on" is indeed "mulla on". I have no idea how to help with recognising shortened informal forms, but one thing that I only consciously observed after someone asked me "soitatko jotain soitinta?" ("do you play an instrument?"), and it caught me off-guard because it never occurred to me that the grammatically correct written way to shorten "do I/do you/etc" questions is completely different from the spoken finnish.
For example, a question of "are you - ?" is written in kirkakieli as "oletko sinä - ?", but since the -ko suffix already clarifies who is being addressed, the word "sinä" is almost redundant. So to ask "oletko sinä tulossa?" (Are you coming?), a character in a book or a play would say "oletko tulossa?" but in spoken finnish, the "you" word used in that dialect is just glued to the end of the verb. So someone who says "sä" says it as "oletsä tulossa?" - which itself shortens to "ooksä" - and someone who uses "sie" asks "oletsie tulossa?" - shortening to "ootsie/ooksie tulossa?"
Speaking finnish is like learning to draw - trying to aim for perfect photorealism isn't necessary to be understood, you can pretty much draw stick figures and it's good enough if people will understand what you're trying to depict. If you've heard someone say that a non-native speaker can never really learn to speak truly flawless finnish, don't be discouraged by that. Finnish is more like japanese than french when it comes to foreign learners - people are impressed that you make an effort at all.
I've met people who have lived in Finland for decades, whose adult children are fluent bilinguals, and you can tell that someone's lived here for 30 years by the way they make more advanced and nuanced mild grammar mistakes.
if i didn't know better, i'd suspect that Finns were intentionally recreating some Tower of Babel shit to prevent as many people as possible from pinning the language down, thus reducing the amount of people they'd ever have to speak to.
their final ideal form would be a unique dialect per person, and no-one would bother anyone else ever again.
Actually the people who created the finnish written language did their best to duct tape 300 different regional dialects together into a single cohesive language. It's like mandarin chinese but on the ass end of the imperialism stick.
I think it's also a good thing for foreign learners to hear, if it hasn't come up: the Finnish written language is very young and entirely manufactured.
The period of Old Book Finnish (Vanha kirjasuomi) lasts from the mid-16th century up until mid to late 18th century. It is a clerical language, and later a language of some countryside official papers. Those who wrote and read in the everyday did it mainly in Latin, German, Swedish and Russian, depending on the time period (in order from the middle ages to the modern era). Once Lutheran sermons and common schooling spread in the 17th century, monolingual country Finnish-speakers begin to write and read as well - more or less only what they had to know for church confirmation. (Stuff like the ABCs, Finnish Paternoster and creed, some cathechism and psalms, your own name...)
What actually counts as formal standardised book Finnish is a 19th century invention with no direct spoken match. Speaking is not what it was ever made for, and it's very, VERY recent in the scope of European languages. Instead of trying to understand it through Central and Western european or Slavic orthographic histories, something like Albanian (Shqip) or Estonian writing is a much better comparison; they were similar imperial peripheries under many subsequent, overlapping empires.
The standard of written Finnish has not gone through as much organic development as written English or Swedish, nor is it based on any one prestige dialect. It was made to be a hybrid of pre-existing, long-developed and very varied dialects. Written Finnish is not some old base for spoken dialects, rather it's a retroactive umbrella to bring them close enough for mutual written understanding and record-keeping.
Also, if it's of any solidarity:
The earliest verified sentence in what can be counted as 'Finnish' is a single line in a 1470s German travelogue, using a purely medieval Hochdeutsch orthography, and amounts to 'I would very much like to speak in Finnish [but] I can't/won't/shan't'. (Mÿnna tachton gernast spuho somen gelen. Emÿna daÿda. Or, in something more like present day spelling, Minä tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kielen [=kielellä], en minä taida.)
The words are said to have come from Finnish-born Maunu Tavast, then Bishop of Turku, in greeting.
Perhaps he was teaching the traveller how to politely decline locals' banter or perhaps it was a lament that they couldn't converse in Finnish together, for the traveller surely didn't know any.
Adding in a fun dialect thing: While the word "taitaa" in the example sentence mentioned is clearly meant as the verb form of "taito" - "skill", which is a bit archaic but apparently in Turku dialect still means "to have the skill (to do something)", in modern written finnish and the more southern dialect I grew up with, it's usually meant as "might, may", and "en taida" comes off not as "I would, but unfortunately I do not have the skill", but more like
weirdly specific question, but is it the norm in Finland for titles/names of things like songs to only be capitalized at the start (Like this) instead of having the first letter of each word capitalized (Like This)? is there a reason behind this? would it be incorrect to do the latter? idk i've just noticed that all the Finnish songs i listen to have names that are only capitalized at the start
Hi!
This is interesting. I have my opinions but first I did some field research on this; I opened Areena and Spotify to check what the Finnish music and TV industries do.
On Areena, the first 10 titles with more than 1 word (and at least one word which wasn't a name or a place) were:
Joulukalenteri: Kiltteyskriisi Korvatunturilla
Kaksi sinkkua ja Colin
Suomi pelaa
Vera Stanhope tutkii
Showtrial - Julkinen tuomio
Kaipuu maalle
Joan - timanttinen varas
Miki Liukkonen - Mitä et minusta vielä tiennyt
Kanaria väsyy turismiin
Unelmia ja bändihommia
This means that 1/10 TV/video media titles capitalize every word. However the one title that capitalizes each word does that only because it's mandatory due to the structure.
As for music, I am using the Joululista 2024 by Filtr Finland, the first 10 songs with the same qualifications were:
Joulun kanssas jaan
Lämmin lumi peittää maan
Hei mummo
Sydämeeni joulun teen
Joulun rauhaa
Tulkoon joulu
Joulun tähtitaivaan alla
Aattoaamu - Anna laulu lahjaksi
Heinillä härkien kaukalon
Valkoinen maa
0/10 of these songs capitalized each word.
I think I forget that people who write in English LOVE their capital letters sometimes. It feels kind of uncomfortable Reading Text Where It Looks Like Every Word Starts A New Sentence. Here we only really capitalize the names of people, places, and brands. In English, you even capitalize the name of the language! Why are we also capitalizing the names of the months????? Why would "president" need to be capitalized???? Does "easter" deserve the respect to be capitalized? Or "monday"? I feel like this is largely a cultural difference. Historically, we don't really care about sounding rude like the Anglophones do.
A good question! If we go grammatically, only the very first letter should be capitalized. That's the rule. That's what the books say from my time in the uni getting my Master's in Finnish.
But many people get that wrong, as we see in the examples above. I've seen this in book names, in song names, in company names... I don't know if it's the influence of English or if people just think it looks cooler if everything is capitalized.
With a small correction: mennä päin prinkkalaa comes from someone driving their carriage right into the wall Prinkkalan talo in the 1820s. (Source kirjastot.fi, "mistä on saanut alkunsa sanonta päin prinkkalaa")
One word I never (until just a moment ago) really realised English doesn't have is lamaantua (and related words). Don't check English wiktionary for its meaning because that's not what it means. Lamaantua is the verb you'd use in Finnish in contexts where English goes for a figurative use of paralysis and it's separate from, you know, physical paralysis (halvaantua (v), halvaus (n.)). Lamaantua can refer to temporary physical paralysis (induced by drugs, for example) but it's most often used when talking about psychological factors temporarily taking away (physical) function. So for example you can be lamaantunut due to fear or anxiety or executive dysfunction or other such thing, but if you are, for example, paralysed as a result of a spinal cord injury, that's not lamaannus that's halvaus.
Those of you who have been learning finnish bc of käärijä or other finnish artist like kuumaa. How much can you speak it or are still at the moi minun nimi on____?
hows your finnish skills non native speaker?
i can only say few words and couple of sentences
im much better at finnish than when i started
i cant say anything
i talk finnish with my finnish friends
i understand more and more but cant talk
crying at the therapy bc of finnish
i can sing along to finnish songs.no idea what the artist is singing
im native finnish speaker and i want to push a button
A little thing I made about inflecting municipality names
Most names in this list were checked from the official web pages of the municipalities. Blame them for any mistakes (/j)
A lot of teachers will tell you to remember some kind of rule set for these kinds of things but I wouldn't do that. Instead, I would advise you to think of them as guidelines; for example, many places that end in -joki use the allative. The most important thing to remember though is that it is not set in stone! There might be a place that uses the illative instead.
Also, remember that even native speakers get these things wrong sometimes. (I had to google an embarrassingly large amount of these just to be sure which one it was) When in doubt, think of a similar place name and use the ending. (you might or might not be correct!)
There might also be situations where the locals cannot come to a conclusion on what the "real" way is, I added some examples of that too. I've also come across situations where two different places have the exact same name but they both inflect it differently...
Here are some resources on this.
(In Finnish) It's very useful since it gives both the inflection (yellow) and what the locals are called (green)
ohjeessa. Tiesitkö? Poikkeuksellisen Venäjällä-taivutuksen taustalla on arveltu olevan Venäjän suuri koko. Rajantakainen Venäjä on ehkä suom
The Institute for the Languages of Finland advice page on the matter. (there's more links to stuff in there too) (In Finnish)
