Finnish verbs

The Finns love to joke that all difficulties with verbs in Finnish know for sure two types of people: linguists of Finnish and foreigners who started learn Finnish!

Indeed, when started learning Finnish verbs, you’ll have to go deep into linguistic difficulties.

The Ultimate!

No sentence is complete without a verb. Where Russians say only two words, for example, a noun + an adjective, the Finns would definitely add a verb.

This is a special verb ‘olla’ — to be. Depending on the pronoun with which it is used in a sentence, olla changes its form (conjugates) as follows:

As you can see, to study the most important verb and keep in mind all its forms (6 ones!), you have to get acquainted with pronouns and how they influence on olla’s body.

Honestly, verb conjugation in Finnish is quite a tricky issue. So far, we don’t go deep into it.

5 – 6 Strange Types

Verbs in the Finnish language are so tough that Finnish linguists have not fully decided on their exact classification. Today, there are two main expert opinions. The first insists on 5 Finnsih verb types, and the second opinion — on 6 ones.

We won’t take an easy way and learn 6 Finnish verb types:

Verb type 1. The verbs ending in 2 vowels, the last of them is mandatory a or ä, such as: puhua – to speak, kääntää – to translate.

Verb type 2. The verbs ending in da or dä, for example: tuoda – to bring, viedä – take away.

We propose to use incorrect Russian proverb (of course, developed by the Russians who tried to keep in mind this wide verb group) to learn the verb type 3: RANA vSTALA (got up early). Finnish verbs type 3 end with any two letters in this ‘proverb’: ra/rä, na/nä, (s)ta/(s)tä, la/lä. The mistake in Russian verb ‘rana’ (early) is not an occasional one. This is all for better memory. For example: purra – to bite, mennä – to go, nousta – to get up, tulla – to come.

Verb type 4. The verbs ending with ta/tä. But before the end, the verb should have any vowel except i or e. For example: tilata – to order, haluta – to want.

Verb type 5 is an exception from the previous one. They have the same ending, but the vowel before the ending should be only i! For example: harkita – to consider.

Verb type 6 is based on the second exception from verb type 4. These verbs have vowel e followed by ta/tä. For example: tyhjetä – to deflate.

What Else?

The verb is such a cool part of speech so it is almost a crime to speak about the verbs separately.

The main principle is to divide the verbs into dynamic ones (they mean movement, change, any activity) and static ones (constant, settled, indestructible).

Some more verb forms to learn. Some of them can be found in Russian as well:

Frequentative verbs express a repeated, repeated, prolonged action: kysyä (to ask) – kysellä (to ask some questions).

Casuative verbs constantly make someone do something: itkeä (tocry) — itkettää (to make cry, want to cry).

Reflexive verbs point out that the subject acts by itself. Russian analogues are the verbs that take either the suffix –ся or –т(ь)ся. For example: iskeä (to hit) – iskeytyä (to impact).

Passive verbs are used when there is no actor, for example: kuulla (to hear) – kuulua (to be heard).

Transitive verbs indicate that an object transfers into another state: jakaa (to divide) – jakaantua (to split up).

Momentive verbs forms show that the action is done momentarily: katsoa (to see) – katsahtaa (to have a look).

Sensive verbs are used to express feelings, sensation, evaluation: oudoksua — to consider something strange, be amazed by.

Descriptive verbs describe what is happening from the sense point of view: Lintu pyrähti — The bird whirred.

When breaking down only the verbs, it may seem that this is the most difficult job to do. However, in Finnish, various topics act like bricks and support making a beautiful and reasonable chain that will help you to understand this beautiful and very wise language.