Talk:Finnish conjugation

Tables

There's lots of good information here, but it needs some more compact visual summary. To that end, I've added a table summarizing the conjugations for Type 1 verbs. A few problems about which I'm not qualified to do much.

1. The conjugations really should feature just one verb at a time. It should either be tiedä' or puhun but not both mixed. We can make a separate table for each verb if they differ sufficiently.
2. The conjugations for the indefinite don't seem complete here. Do these conjugations only exist for third person inanimate singular (it)? Those are the only examples that are given. If this is true, this should be stated explicitly. If it's not true. then we need to give the full conjugation, in the table, for each number and person. Interlingua 14:44, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The table in the current revision [1] is confused. It contains present forms in the "past" row and then the present forms of a different verb altogether, then a table for personal forms of the indefinite, which by definition does not exist (the explicit function of the 'indefinite' or passiivi is to indicate that the subject is indefinite, i.e. not mentioned or even known). It is more of a "fourth person" than a true passive tense (as in "the house was built by John", which indicates a subject, and cannot be placed in the Finnish indefinite). --Vuo (talk) 20:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Verb Classes

Not knowing Finnish except a few words, I found this article very helpful, but was confused by some inconsistencies: It would very nice if the table in the first section ("Overview") corresponded to the following detailed descriptions of the verb classes. Currently, the "Overview" table names six verb classes with some subclassess (see first column), named 1a, 1b, ... 6. The following sections also deal with six verb classes, but named with roman numerals I, II, ... VI. Moreover, the classes do not match: While 1a,b,c,d seems to correspond to I, 4 to IV, 5 to V, and 6 to VI, 2a and 2b seem to correspond to III, while there is no correpondence with 3, nor with II. Also, the example verbs from the table and the example verbs in the following section do not always match. CM (talk) 12:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Lie

I came across the word LIE in my newspaper today which I guess is a potential from from OLLA but can someone please let me see how and why LIE and not LIENE gets to be used.--Hauskalainen (talk) 14:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a poetic abbreviation, also sees use in some phrases (missä lie). --vuo (talk) 20:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

The article concentrates too heavily on the formal language. Spoken language is different

This is a modified version of a thread I started at Finnish Language Wiktionary here.

Personally I think English Wikipedia and Wiktionary concentrate too heavily on the formal written language which is an original form that has been preserved from the time that Finnish was first written down (or so I believe). In practice, this is not the language as it is spoken. Most people reading this article will probably be non Finns who will mostly be learning Finnish because they want to speak to people and write informally (to friends etc) as well as understand the language when they hear it. For this, the spoken language is far more useful than the written language.

The conjugation of olla for example in the spoken language is not at all like that in the formal language. I am not Finnish and I am a little uncertain as to the accuracy of the tables below so please correct them if I have made errors. I tried to construct for the verb OLLA because it is the most common verb. I used the indicative table from the article and made it into two tables, one showing the formal language conjugation and the other for the spoken language. In the second table I then highlighted the conjugation differences. The auto fit function unfortunately does not make it easy to read. Please correct what I have written if there are errors and make the table sized identical if you know how to do this.

			TABLE 1 indicative mood (kirjakieli)
active voice			present tense		imperfect		perfect		pluperfect
per.	no.	pron.	affirmative	negative	affirmative	negative	affirmative	negative	affirmative	negative
1st	sg.	minä	olen	en ole	olin	en ollut	olen ollut	en ole ollut	olin ollut	en ollut ollut
2nd		sinä	olet	et ole	olit	et ollut	olet ollut	et ole ollut	olit ollut	et ollut ollut
3rd		hän	ole	ei ole	oli	ei ollut	on ollut	ei ole ollut	oli ollut	ei ollut ollut
1st	pl.	me	olmme	emme ole	olimme	emme olleet	olemme olleet	emme ole olleet	olimme olleet	emme olleet olleet
2nd		te	oltte	ette ole	olitte	ette olleet	olette olleet	ette ole olleet	olitte olleet	ette olleet olleet
3rd		he	olevat	eivät ole	olivat	eivät olleet	ovat olleet	eivät ole olleet	olivat olleet	eivät olleet olleet
passive voice			oltaan	ei olta	olttiin	ei olttu	on olttu	ei ole olttu	oli olttu	ei oltu olttu — ei ollut olttu

			TABLE 2 indicative mood (puhekieli)
active voice			present tense		imperfect		perfect		pluperfect
per.	no.	pron.	affirmative	negative	affirmative	negative	affirmative	negative	affirmative	negative
1st	sg.	mä	oo	en oo	olin	en ollu	olen ollu	en oo ollu	olin ollu	en ollu ollu
2nd		sä	oot	et oo	olit	et ollu	olet ollu	et oo ollu	olit ollu	et ollu ollu
3rd		se	oo	ei oo	oli	ei ollu	on ollu	ei oo ollu	oli ollu	ei ollu ollu
1st	pl.	me	ollaan	ei olla	oltiin	ei oltu	ollaan oltu	ei olla oltu	oltiin oltu	ei oltu oltu
2nd		te	ootte	ette oo	olitte	ette ollu	oote ollu	ette oo ollu	olitte ollu	ette ollu ollu
3rd		ne	on	ei oo	oli	ei ollu	on ollu	ei oo ollu	oli ollu	ei ollu ollu
passive voice			oltaan	ei olta	olttiin	ei olttu	on olttu	ei ole olttu	oli olttu	ei oltu olttu — ei ollu olttu

The highlights in the table show where the spoken language differs from the formal language. As you seem they are many differences. Now this may seem obvious and simple if you are native born Finnish because table 2 is the language your mother taught you and table 1 is the language the school told you was your mother's language :) Us poor foreigners have table 1 forms drummed into us by language teachers but I think we ought to learn table 2 forms first (just as Finns do in fact). Hence it would be really useful to have both conjugations in Wikipedia. Is there someone who is better skilled than I to produce conjugation tables for the spoken language not just in the indicative but also the other forms? I think OLLA is more useful than PUHUA but maybe we should have both given that OLLA is irregular but very common. What do other editors think? 84.250.230.158 (talk) 10:26, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

AGREE AND DISAGREE! there are actually THREE/FOUR Finnish languages! Kirjakieli (written language) yleiskieli (general language) and puhekieli (spoken language). What you have tabulated is Helsinki puhekieli. If you start using that without being fluent people will reply and you'll have no idea what they're saying! The fourth language is slangi, the language teens use and adults despair over! Finnish is unusual (?) in that it only recently became a written language as part of a highly political process that took part in recent history (see e.g articles on Finnish prehistory, Snellman and the Fennoman movement) Although Agricola is the father of written Finnish the language he devised/compiled is not kirjakieli e.g "Oppe nyt wanha ia noori joilla ombi Sydhen toori." ~(from Abckiria). This history has led to a phonetic language and the multiplicity, but, for instance in the UK, Lancastrians don't write down their "accent". In Lappeenranta people don't say the Helsinkii "mä" (unless they're trying to be cool) but "miä", nd each area has its own puhekieli. In my opinion the language that should be focussed on is yleiskieli. This is "real" Finnish. It's the language used when people who are not e.g close family meet. It is the language of the national newspapers (including Helsinkisanomat!), of the television channels, political debate, and so on. The problem I have with this article is that it only makes sense if you are already a grammarian/linguist i.e someone with an in depth knowledge of grammar (not Finnish grammar, just grammar as a generality - how many people for instan know the imperfect tense is often not that a tense at all? How many care? Is it important?!). This article is written for specialists but imo does not need to be. It ahould be possible to "dumb down" the explanations, drop the grammarian jargon, and, as this after all is an English article, use examples from English to illustrate better what is happening in Finnish. In practice Finnish is NOT particularly complex. As you say, Finnish children only become confused by it AFTER they go to school and try to fit the nationalistic kirjakieli, a language that nobody speaks, with their yleiskieli (I don't think people have a problem with things not being in puhekieli). So my own plea wouild be for the article to be written with minimal recourse to grammarian jargon (to respect wiki policy i.e to go from a lay explanation to a specialist one bearing in mind qwiki is a general not a specialist publication) but rather simply by reference to examples in English. LookingGlass (talk) 16:45, 14 November 2014 (UTC)