Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Finnish sentence types

You've probably heard of the verb types and the noun types, but how about the Finnish sentence types? If you want to have a full lesson about them, I recommend reading Leila White's grammar book, pages 300-323. Here's my short version of the most useful sentence types.

The verb conjugates according to the person


A simple sentence

A predicative sentence. Might cause confusion because of the occasional plural partitive.

A sentence with an object 
  • Minä juon nyt kahvia. - I'm drinking coffee now.

A sentence with two verbs, the second one in the basic form.
  • Minä tykkään opiskella suomea.  - I like to study Finnish.

A sentence with two verbs, the second one in MA-infinitive
  • Minä menen nyt nukkumaan. - I'm going to sleep now.

The verb is always in the 'hän' form



An existential clause
  • Baarissa oli paljon ihmisiä. - There were many people in the bar. 
  • Kouluun tulee huomenna vieraita. - The school will have visitors tomorrow.
  • Savonlinnassa käy kesällä paljon turisteja. - A lot of tourists visit Savonlinna in the summer.
  • Remember the plural partitive!

  • Minun täytyy maksaa tämä lasku. -  I have to pay this bill.

A sentence with kannattaa
  • Sinun kannattaa nyt lähteä. - You should leave now. 

A sentencs with a feeling verb
  •  Tämä elokuva itkettää minua. - This movie makes me cry. 

A sentence. that express a change or a result can be in either category


  • Tulin äidiksi 31-vuotiaana. - I became a mother when I was 31 years old.
  • Minusta tuli äiti 31-vuotiaana. - I became a mother when I was 31 years old.
  • Read more: How to become something in Finnish

No personal pronoun at all


  • Ota lisää! - Take more! 

  • Saako täällä syödä omia eväitä? - Is it ok to eat your own food here?

  • Suomessa juodaan paljon kahvia. - They drink a lot of coffee in Finland. 

Expressing your opinion with an adjective in the beginning of the sentence
  • (On) harmi, että teidän pitää jo lähteä. - (It's) a pity, that you have to leave already.

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. Follow this blog, if you want to be the first one to know when I post something new.  If you want to subscribe to my newsletter, you can do it here


4 comments:

MBLAH_op said...

Thanks for your blog and for that kind of round up.
I could definitely read and use a post about those sentences that have a 'kind of subject' in the genitive (though I feel it's more a dative complement than a genitive subject) + modal verb + verb in 1st infinitive. Like «Ulkomaalaisten kannattaa opiskella suomea.» A short list or more example of modal verbs that require that construction would be great ! :-)

Random Finnish Lesson / Hanna Männikkölahti said...

Tässä postauksessa on joitain sellaisia verbejä: http://randomfinnishlesson.blogspot.fi/2014/07/a-infinitive.html (Pahoittelen, että vastaan 3,5 vuotta myöhässä.:))

Unknown said...

Ive read countless blogs and chapters and wrote down countless of my own charts but im still struggling with creating my own sentences. Would you give me a few quick and simple tips on how to translate an english sentence to finnish? I have alot of finnish in me and would love to learn it but im terrible. You can email me at the provided email i usei used to post this.

Random Finnish Lesson / Hanna Männikkölahti said...

Challenge accepted! Give me a couple of English sentences that you'd like to say in Finnish and I'll write a blog post about them. I'm pretty sure that figuring out the sentence type is the key.