Finnish is a language in the Finno-Ugric family spoken by about 6 million people in Finland, Sweden, The US, Norway, Canada, Russia, Estonia, the majority of people being native to Finland. Finnish is not related to it's neighboring countries' languages.
Finnish is said to be a difficult language for one to learn, but in fact it is merely different. Some grammar bits that stand out in Finnish are:
Lack of articles: Finnish has no words for "a, an, the" but sometimes words like 'se'- 'on' and 'yksi'- 'one' 'tämä'- that are used in an article-like manner.
Forming questions: Questions that are answered with a 'yes' or 'no', or that don't have a question word (e.g. What? Where? When? Why? etc.) have to have a suffix added to the verb.
"To have": The verb "to have" does not exist in Finnish therefore to expresses possession the case -lla/llä is added to the personal pronoun or subject of the sentence. (e.g. Minulla on uusi kamera- At me (there) is (a) new camera )
Making things negative: The word "ei" (no, not) works more like a verb in Finnish and is conjugated according to the personal pronoun. (En- I do not, Et- you do not, Ei= he/she/it/- does not, etc) 'Minä en halua...' = 'I do not want...' . Finnish has also has imperative forms of verbs ('älä'= don't, älköön= I don't)
Gender: In Finnish a grammatical gender does not exist. "Hän" is a word meaning "s/he".
Cases: Finnish cases correspond with prepositions. (e.g. -ssa= in so 'talossa'= 'in the house'
Future tense: Finnish has no future tense so instead of saying,"Tomorrow I'm going to go shopping" one would say, "Tomorrow I go shop".
Consonant graduation and other things:
COPYPASTA from: [link]
* final -i in nouns often (but not in new loanwords like grilli) changes to -e- in inflected forms, e.g. the genitive of kivi 'stone' is kiven (with -n as the genitive case suffix)
* final -nen (which is rather common in adjectives and occurs in nouns, too) in the singular nominative changes to -se- (or -s-) in other words, e.g. hevonen ‘horse’, hevoset ‘horses’
* consonant gradation: double consonants kk, pp, tt are often (basically, before closed syllables) replaced by single k, p, t, e.g. the genitive of lakki ‘cap’ is lakin
* similar phenomenon for single consonants: single k, p, and t are often replaced by absence of a consonant, v, and d, respectively, e.g. laki : lain, lupa : luvan, katu : kadun.
Another thing to be said about Finnish is how one can create one word to mean a whole sentence. This is probably the best example that I've seen:
Talossanikinko? = Do you mean in my houses too?
Talo= house
saa= cases corresponding to 'in'
ni= 'my'
kin= 'also'
ko?= indicates that this is a question
Note: There are separate words for 'my' and 'also' when not used inside of a word. "Minun" means 'my' and "myös" means 'also'.
Finnish is said to be a difficult language for one to learn, but in fact it is merely different. Some grammar bits that stand out in Finnish are:
Quote:
Lack of articles: Finnish has no words for "a, an, the" but sometimes words like 'se'- 'on' and 'yksi'- 'one' 'tämä'- that are used in an article-like manner.
Forming questions: Questions that are answered with a 'yes' or 'no', or that don't have a question word (e.g. What? Where? When? Why? etc.) have to have a suffix added to the verb.
"To have": The verb "to have" does not exist in Finnish therefore to expresses possession the case -lla/llä is added to the personal pronoun or subject of the sentence. (e.g. Minulla on uusi kamera- At me (there) is (a) new camera )
Making things negative: The word "ei" (no, not) works more like a verb in Finnish and is conjugated according to the personal pronoun. (En- I do not, Et- you do not, Ei= he/she/it/- does not, etc) 'Minä en halua...' = 'I do not want...' . Finnish has also has imperative forms of verbs ('älä'= don't, älköön= I don't)
Gender: In Finnish a grammatical gender does not exist. "Hän" is a word meaning "s/he".
Cases: Finnish cases correspond with prepositions. (e.g. -ssa= in so 'talossa'= 'in the house'
Future tense: Finnish has no future tense so instead of saying,"Tomorrow I'm going to go shopping" one would say, "Tomorrow I go shop".
Consonant graduation and other things:
COPYPASTA from: [link]
* final -i in nouns often (but not in new loanwords like grilli) changes to -e- in inflected forms, e.g. the genitive of kivi 'stone' is kiven (with -n as the genitive case suffix)
* final -nen (which is rather common in adjectives and occurs in nouns, too) in the singular nominative changes to -se- (or -s-) in other words, e.g. hevonen ‘horse’, hevoset ‘horses’
* consonant gradation: double consonants kk, pp, tt are often (basically, before closed syllables) replaced by single k, p, t, e.g. the genitive of lakki ‘cap’ is lakin
* similar phenomenon for single consonants: single k, p, and t are often replaced by absence of a consonant, v, and d, respectively, e.g. laki : lain, lupa : luvan, katu : kadun.
Another thing to be said about Finnish is how one can create one word to mean a whole sentence. This is probably the best example that I've seen:
Talossanikinko? = Do you mean in my houses too?
Talo= house
saa= cases corresponding to 'in'
ni= 'my'
kin= 'also'
ko?= indicates that this is a question
Note: There are separate words for 'my' and 'also' when not used inside of a word. "Minun" means 'my' and "myös" means 'also'.
Quote:
1. Introduction:
...Finnish Grammar bits
........Forming questions
........"To have"
........Making things negative
........Gender
........Cases
........Future Tense
........Consonant graduation & other things
2. Pronunciation:
....Consonants
....Vowels
....Diphthongs
3. Cases & Basic Grammar:
....Finnish cases
....Consonant graduation
........Final 'i'
........Final 'nen'
........Consonant graduation
........Single consonants
....Vowel harmony
........Ä and Ö
.......Other
...Object
.......Completed or half completed?
4. Verb Conjugation:
...Conjugating Finnish Verbs
........Present
........Perfect
........Imperfect
........Pluperfect
........Potential
........Potential perfect
........Conditional
........Conditional perfect
........Imperative present
........Imperative perfect
........Passive
5. Vocabulary
...Personal pronouns
...Basic vocabulary
......Alphabet
......Numbers
......Other
...Who?, What?, When?, Where?, How?, Why?
...Places, and people
...Basic verbs
...Slang or shortenings of words
6. Links
...Grammar links
...Vocabulary lists, and dictionaries
...Verbix, conjugate Finnish verbs
...Resources
Please anyone who wants to correct any grammar mistakes in this, please do so and send it to me in a PM. I will credit you.
