Friday, April 4, 2014

Adverbs of manner in Finnish

Here's a post about adverbs that express style or manner and answer to the question kuinka or miten. Adverbs can also express time, place and quantity. They're everywhere. Making the sti adverb is quite simple: just add the ending to the stem of the adjective.

  • huono: Mä nukuin viime yönä tosi huonosti. - I slept very badly last night. 
  • ihana: Se laulaa niin ihanasti! - He sings so wonderfully!
  • riittäväNuku riittävästi. - Sleep enough.
  • oikea: Oikeasti? - Really?
  • normaali: Normaalisti mä en polta. - I don't normally smoke.
  • kaunis: Se oli kauniisti sanottu. - That was beautifully said. 
  • hidas: Kävellään hitaasti.  - Let's walk slowly.
  • terveellinen: Suomessa syödään terveellisesti. - People eat healthily in Finland.
  • tavallinen: Tavallisesti herään kuudelta. - I usually wake up at six.  

Notice how some adverbs are formed with other endings:




Comparative and superlative forms


To make the comparative, change the ending to mmin
The superlative is either immin or sometimes iten. You can emphasize the superlative with kaikkein.

  • ahkera: Meidän täytyy opiskella ahkerasti. - We have to study hard.
  • Sinä voisit opiskella ahkerammin. - You could study harder.
  • Ne, joilla on suomalainen tyttö- tai poikaystävä opiskelevat yleensä ahkerimmin. - Those who have a Finnish girlfriend or boyfriend usually study the hardest.
  • Minä opiskelin kaikkein ahkerimmin! - I studied the hardest of all!
  • Heräsin aikaisemmin / aiemmin kuin eilen. - I woke up earlier than yesterday.

Hyvä has an exceptional comparison:

  • Se oli hyvin sanottu! - That was well said. 
  • Ensi kerralla menee paremmin. - It will go better next time. 
  • Siru lauloi tänään parhaimmin. - Siru sung the best today. (Or parhaiten.)

Uncomparable adverbs


Some adverbs you just cannot compare.

  • Mä sanoin leikisti, että me ei puhuta suomea. - I was teasing/joking and said that we don't speak any Finnish. (leikki = a children's game or play)
  • Mä sanoin sen vahingossa. - I said it by accident. (vahinko = accident)
  • Se teki sen tahallaan! - He did it on purpose!

Lue lisää:


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

5 comments:

Tommy Quist said...

Hey Hanna,

A good subject for a post might be the very confusion distinction between the way the English-speaking world + Brazil use power-of-thousand words and the way the rest of the world (including Finland) use them.

Specifically all the "-oona" numerals besides miljoona will in reality be powers of 1000 higher than expected to an english speaker (for example biljoona does not equal a billion) it's probably only interesting up to the English trillion or quadrillion, as numbers bigger than that don't tend to show up in the news or statistics, but I imagine it could make a short article. (unless you already covered it and I don't remember)

Anonymous said...

Ah.. short scale and long scale.

Anonymous said...

The short rule is: Finnish -sti is about the same as English -ly. (In the example above, "riittävä" is about the same as "adequate".)

Hanna said...

Oh my. Thanks for the idea. I'll try to come up with something with numbers. Until that you'll have this Wikipedia article:

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suurten_lukujen_nimet

Random Finnish Lesson / Hanna Männikkölahti said...

Yes, riittävä is same as adequate. http://www.sanakirja.org/search.php?id=174338&l2=3