Time for more grammar posts! In this chapter of my book I learnt about adjectives and some other fun stuff.
You might have encountered this case already if you tried talking about languages, e.g. “in Finnish” is suomeksi.
This case usually implies a change of some kind, a state or position someone/something enters, or a time by something happens.
1. You can use it with words like muuttua (to change), osoittautua (to turn out to be):
Ilma muuttui kylmäksi. - The weather turned cold.
Kesä osoittautui sateiseksi. - The summer turned out to be rainy.
2. With verbs like valmistua (to graduate), päästä (to reach a position or status), joutua (to end up), kasvaa (to grow), kääntää (to translate)
Minä pääsin ylioppilaaksi. - I graduated from school.
Hän valmistui insinööriksi. - He graduated as an engineer.
Hän kasvoi pitkäksi. - He grew tall.
Minä kännään sen suomeksi. - I’ll translate it in Finnish.
Luen kirjan suomeksi. - I’m reading the book in Finnish.
Sano se englanniksi! - Say it in English!
3. With the time expression
Matkustatteko te kotiin jouluksi? - Are you traveling home for Christmas?
Don’t forget that consonant and vowel changes can happen when adding the case ending!
suomi - suomeksi
pankki - pankiksi
aikuinen - aikuiseksi (adult)
poika - pojaksi
The comparative ending for adjectives is -mpi, this can also cause consonant and vowel changes. Also, two-syllable words that end in -a/-ä, change this final vowel to -e before the ending. The ending is added to the inflectional stem, e.g. if you take the genitive form of the word without the ending:
hauska - hauskempi (nice)
paha - pahempi (bad)
kaunis - kauniimpi (beautiful)
suomalainen - suomalaisempi
Exceptions:
hyvä - parempi - paras (good - better - best)
pitkä - pitempi - pisin (long - longer - longest)
When you add other case endings to the comparative form, the -mpi ending changes to -mpa/-mpä or -mma/-mmä (depending on whether there is a consonant change). In the plural forms, the -a/-ä is replaced by -i.
huono - bad
huonompi - worse
plural: huonommat (mp-mm change)
genitive: huonomman, plural: huonompien
partitive: huonompaa (no change as only a vowel is added), plural: huonompia
Confusing? Yes! I guess this might take a while to get used to, but after a while just like anything else, you’ll know this without the rules :)
Sinä olet paremmassa asemassa kuin minä. - You are in a better position than me.
You can use kuin to compare two things.
Anne on vanhempi kuin Tiina. - Anne is older than Tiina.
Or you can use the adjective in the partitive instead of kuin, note the word order changes:
Anne on Tiinaa vanhempi.
You can use asti and saakka to mean “since a certain time”, together with the elative case
viime vuodesta asti - since last year
lähtien - since, starting from
vuodesta 2001 lähtien - starting from 2001
asti and saakka can also mean “until”, used with the illative case
jouluun asti - until Christmas
ensi kuuhun saakka - until next month
That’s it for now, there were also other small things, but I will summarize those next time.
