Thursday, September 26, 2013

Download Finnish podcasts

I finally did what I always tell my students to do and downloaded some podcasts to listen to while excercising. Yle Puhe is my favourite radio channel, because it has interesting shows and no annoying commercials. This link shows you the most popular (kuunnelluimmat) Yle Puhe radio shows that are also available outside of Finland (kuunneltavissa ulkomailla) and which you can download (vain ladattavat). I like Ali ja Husu and Riku ja Tunna - Docventures.

Hmm. Should I expand to podcasting? What would you like to listen? 45 minutes of different sentences with the plural partitive? One hour of manic verb conjugation? Random dialogues with my random students and friends? :)

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Opi suomea Cheekin kanssa

Have you ever listened to Finnish rap? Well, Cheek (poski) seems to be super popular right now, and YouTube is full of his songs with lyrics. Have a fun night! Hauskaa iltaa!

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Personal pronouns in Finnish

Here's a small chart about the most useful forms of the personal pronouns. Check out the object post for the accusative case.


Kuka?   

nominative

Ketä?

partitive   

Kenen?  

genitive

Kenellä?

adessive

minä

minua

minun

minulla

sinä

sinua

sinun

sinulla

hän

häntä

hänen

hänellä

me

meitä

meidän

meillä

te

teitä

teidän

teillä

he

heitä

heidän

heillä





  • Minä olen täällä! - I'm here! 
  • Etkö sinä rakasta minua enää? - Don't you love me anymore?
  • Se on minun. - It's mine. 
  • Minulla ei ole sitä enää. - I don't have it any more. 

This might be too much to handle, but here are the (most common) spoken language forms:


Kuka?   
nominative
Ketä?
partitive   
Kenen?  
genitive
adessive
mua
mun
mulla
sua
sun
sulla
sitä
sen
sillä
me
meitä
meiän
meillä
te
teitä
teiän
teillä
ne
niitä
niiden
niillä

  • Mä oon täällä! - I'm here! 
  • Etkö sä rakasta mua enää? - Don't you love me anymore?
  • Se on mun. - It's mine. 
  • Mulla ei oo sitä enää. - I don't have it any more. 


About the author of Random Finnish Lesson: 


My name is Hanna Männikkölahti. I am a professional Finnish teacher who gives private online lessons and simplifies books into easy Finnish. Please read more in www.linktr.ee/hannamannikkolahti and follow this blog, if you want to be the first one to know when I post something new. 

Talking about the future in Finnish

..is super easy: just use the present tense! However, here are some ways to emphasize that you are talking about the future, not present:

1. Time adverbs and conjunctions


  • Mä teen sen huomenna. - I'll do it tomorrow. 
  • Mä menen ensi viikonloppuna Helsinkiin. - I'm going to Helsinki next weekend. 
  • Mä soitan sulle, kun mä olen perillä. - I will call you when I'm there. 

2. Future verbs aikoa and meinata


  • Mä aion ostaa uuden auton. - I'm intending to buy a new car. 
  • Mitä sä meinaat tehdä huomenna? - What are you planning to do tomorrow?

3. Using a present and a perfect tense together in a sentence


  • Mä soitan sulle kun putkimies on lähtenyt. - I will call you when the plumber has left. 
  • Vastaan sinulle sitten kun olen lukenut tämän sopimuksen. - I will answer you once I've read this contract. 

4. Using the verb tulla and the MA-infinitive illative


  • Sinä tulet katumaan tätä! - You will regret this!
  • En tule ikinä antamaan sinulle anteeksi. - I will never forgive you. 
  • Kuinka monta kurssia sinulla tulee olemaan ensi syksynä? - How many courses will you have next fall?




About the author of Random Finnish Lesson: 


My name is Hanna Männikkölahti. I am a professional Finnish teacher who gives private online lessons and simplifies books into easy Finnish. Please read more in www.linktr.ee/hannamannikkolahti and follow this blog, if you want to be the first one to know when I post something new.  

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The eleven most useful cases

In theory, the case endings are quite logical, but it all goes crazy when the word stems change. In this post, I try to keep is as simple as possible. Auto is a nice word as you already know it, it's easy to pronounce and it doesn't change no matter what ending or marker (such as the plural i) you add to it. This is the declination in singular.

1. Nominative auto - a/the car



2. Genitive auton - car's, of the car, with postpositions, in an object sentence when the action is completed.


  • Mikä teidän auton rekisterinumero on? - What's the register number of your car?
  • Kissa meni auton alle. - The cat went (to) under the car. 
  • Minä haluan auton. - I want a car. 

3. Partitive autoa


  • Minulla on kaksi autoa. - I have two cars.
  • Minulla ei ole autoa. - I don't have a car.
  • En halua autoa. - I don't want a car. 

4. Inessive autossa - in the car, inside of the car


  • Mä odotan sua autossa. - I'll wait for you in the car.
  • Meidän autossa on jotain vikaa. - There's something wrong in our car. 


5. Elative autosta - from the car, about the car


  • Tule ulos autosta! - Get out of the car!
  • Mä en tykkää meidän autosta. - I don't like our car. 


6. Illative autoon - into the car


  • Minä menen jo autoon. - I'll go into the car already.
  • Älä jätä koiraa autoon! - Don't leave the dog in (to) the car!

7. Adessive autolla - by the car, close to the car 



With very common words like  pöytä, tuoli, lattia and sänky  (table, chair, floor, bed) the adessive ending means on top. With auto, you would say auton päällä instead. 


8. Ablative autolta - from by/close the car, from on top of the car, also used with the sense verbs


  • Mä en jaksa kävellä autolta kauppaan. - I don't have the energy to walk from the car to the store.
  • Tuo näyttää meidän autolta. - That looks like our car.

9. Allative autolle - to the car (but not inside), to on top of the car


  • Mä menen jo autolle. - I'm going to the car already. (But not inside.)
  • Mä etsin ostajaa meidän vanhalle autolle. - I'm looking for a buyer for our old car. 


10. Essive autona - in the state of being a car, also used with some verbs.


  • Teidän autona tämä olisi jo mennyt rikki. - If this car was yours, it would have broken already. 
  • Me pidämme tätä ihan hyvänä autona. - We consider this an ok car. 

11. Translative autoksi - transition into a car, also used with some verbs.


  • Osaatko taitella tämän paperin autoksi? - Can you fold this paper into a car?
  • Mä luulin tuota meidän autoksi. - I thought that was our car. 

Other cases


What about abessive autotta, instructive autoin and comitatives autoineni, autoinesi, autoineen, autoinemme, autoinenne and autoineen? I'll skip those ones today, but I'll add soething later. :) The instructive is one of my favourite cases, but not so common with the word auto. 


Songs with local endings: 


The adjetive 'hieno' in positive, comparative and superlative
 in 11 different cases.


Related posts:




About the author of Random Finnish Lesson: 


My name is Hanna Männikkölahti. I am a professional Finnish teacher who gives private online lessons and simplifies books into easy Finnish. Please read more in www.linktr.ee/hannamannikkolahti and follow this blog, if you want to be the first one to know when I post something new. 

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Conversational Finnish Course

Here's a material that never ends! I've seen the heavy book version back in my days at the Finnish language camp in Minnesota, but I never knew that the material also exists online. Check out the Conversational Finnish Course by Foreign Service Institute U.S. Department of State, but notice that it's form the 1980's and some of the expressions might be a bit out of date. Such as sending a telegram, sähkösanoma.

See also my post about material for teaching yourself Finnish.


Sunday, September 1, 2013

From Start to Finnish audio material

What a coincidence: I decided to use Leila White's From Start to Finnish on my beginners' course, and Finn Lectura just posted on Facebook that the audio material for the book is available online.