Saturday, October 8, 2016

Accusative verbs in Finnish

I'm sure that many of you have heard about partitive verbs, which are verbs that always require a partitive form of a noun after them. Here's a list of common accusative verbs or total object verbs. You might want to refresh your memory about the Finnish object afterwards.:)

These are the personal pronouns  and the question word kuka in the accusative form:


  • minä - minut
  • sinä - sinut 
  • hän - hänet
  • me - meidät
  • te - teidät
  • he - heidät
  • kuka - kenet?


Kuinka monta verbiä osaat jo? - How many verbs do you already know?

  1. esitellä
  2. herättää
  3. kutsua
  4. muistaa
  5. nähdä
  6. parantaa
  7. tappaa
  8. tavata
  9. tuntea
  10. unohtaa
  11. viedä
  12. yllättää




Here are the example sentences and translations: 


  1. Voisitko esitellä hänet minulle? - Could you introduce him to me?
  2. Herätä minut kuudelta. - Wake me up at six.
  3. Hän kutsui meidät juhliinsa. - She invited us to her party. 
  4. Minä muistan sinut! - I remember you!
  5. Minä näin sinut eilen kaupungilla. - I saw you at the city centre yesterday. 
  6. Tuo lääkäri paransi minut. - That doctor cured / healed me.
  7. Minä tapan sinut! - I'll kill you!
  8. Tapaan hänet huomenna. - I'll meet her tomorrow,  
  9. Tunnen heidät hyvin. - I know them well.
  10. Oletko unohtanut meidät? - Have you forgotten us?
  11. Minä voin viedä sinut kotiin. - I can take you home. 
  12. Sinä yllätit minut! - You surprised me!


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. 


6 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello! I need to say how grateful to you I am for this blog. Good job done, please continue! I used to learn finnish some years ago and I'd like to focus on it again and this page helps me a lot.

I'd like to ask you, if I understand this topic right. Objects with this kind of verbs are always in accusative form? I read articles about when to use accusative x partitive x nominative form. What I mean is, that upper you wrote example like 'herätä minut kuudelta', and for common verbs (if I get it right) imperative makes objects to be in nominative form. So... Will the accusative form 'win' in negative (question, sentence, imperative), too?

Take care, Kata

Anonymous said...

Hello! I need to say how grateful to you I am for this blog. Good job done, please continue! I used to learn finnish some years ago and I'd like to focus on it again and this page helps me a lot.

I'd like to ask you, if I understand this topic right. Objects with this kind of verbs are always in accusative form? I read articles about when to use accusative x partitive x nominative form. What I mean is, that upper you wrote example like 'herätä minut kuudelta', and for common verbs (if I get it right) imperative makes objects to be in nominative form. So... Will the accusative form 'win' in negative (question, sentence, imperative), too?

Take care, Kata

Random Finnish Lesson / Hanna Männikkölahti said...

Hmm.. Akkusatiivi voittaa nominatiivin, mutta partitiivi voittaa aina.:) Jos lause on negatiivinen, objekti on aina partitiivissa.

Herätä minut.
Älä herätä minua.

Osta auto.
Älä osta autoa.

Unknown said...

Kiitos paljon

chicklet said...

Hei Hanna!Thank you for this post.I'm having trouble understanding the logic here. Why is it "minä rakastan sinua" or "ikävän sinua" or "sinä katsot minua" instead of sinut or minut here?

Random Finnish Lesson / Hanna Männikkölahti said...

I guess there is no logic.. Rakastaa, ikävöidä and katsoa just require partitive after them.