Suomi (Finnish) {closed - needs new teacher!}

[razielarcha]

Sorry for anyone waiting for the next Suomi lesson. I'll try and put one up tomorrow... I'm in the middle of finals week and I work in retail... I'm hardly ever home!

...And this will also be posted in the Norsk thread..  

[razielarcha]

Vowel Harmony

**These are not clear cut rules. As in any language, there will be exceptions**

Suomi has three types of vowels.

Front (hard) vowels:
ä
ö
y

Neutral vowels:
e
i

and soft (back) vowels:
a
o
u

Single words cannot contain both hard and soft vowels. The only exception to this would be compound words,
(aaltoieva (surging/rolling/swaying) äidillä (mother) työmaata (workplace)
and a very select few words of foreign origin. (amatööri [amateur] amatöörina [as an amateur])

Words can contain both neutral and soft or neutral and hard, but not hard and soft.

When words only contain neutral vowels, their suffixes can only use front (hard) vowels.

Cases

These attach to the back of a word.

Case name . . . .ending . . . function . . . example (translation)
Nominative -(pl. -t (basic form) auto ( car)
Genitive -nö -den, -tten possession auton (of the car )
Accusative -n, -t object ending hänet (him/her )
partitive -a/-ä; indefinite maitoa ((some) milk )
---------- -ta/-tä quantity vettä ((some) water )
---------- -tta/-ttä -------- perhettä ((some) family )
Inessive -ssa/-ssä inside autossa ( in the car)
elative -sta/-stä out of autosta ( out of the car)
Illative **note below** -Vn, hVn into autoon (into the car )
------------------- -seen, -siin ---- maahan (into the country )
------------------- --------- ---- Porvooseen (to Porvoo )
Adessive -lla/-llä on/instrument pöydällä (on the table )
Ablative -lta/-ltä off pöydältä (off the table )
Allative -lle onto pöydälle (onto the table )
essive -na/-nä state opettajana (as a teacher )
translative -ksi change of state opettajaksi ((become) a teacher )
comitative -ine- accompanying vaimoineni (with my wife )
instructive -n (idiomatic) jalan (on foot )

**Note** above, in the examples -Vn, -hVn the capital V is meant to indicate the nearest preceding vowel.
so, some examples of this:
Turku would use -un because the nearest vowel to the ending is u and becomes Turkuun (it means to Turku)
Helsinki would use -in because the nearest vowel is i and becomes Helsinkiin (to Helsinki)
maa uses -han and becomes maahan (into the country)
tie uses -hen and becomes tiehen (to the road)

I'll get into particles next time... and maybe a little bit of sentence structure!

Now for a hardcore exercise. I'll not be giving a translation to this. Curl up with a good dictionary and see if you can translate what it says! This is an exert from Lukukirja. It's a book to help children learn to read (and write) Finnish.

Liisa, Maija ja Matti asuvat maalla. He rakastavat suuresti kotiaan. He rakastavat myöskin äitiä, isää ja toinen toisiaan. Heidän kotinsa on hyvin onnellinen.

Talvi-illoin, kun ulkona tuulee ja tuiskuaa, he istuvat loimuavan takkavalkean ääressä ja laulavat kauniita lauluja, joita ovat koulussa oppineet. Raikkaana kaikuu: "On pyhäkoulu armas", ja "On koti, jossa ikilaulu soipi".