Learn how to explain a problem you're having
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Hi everyone, and welcome back to FinnishPod101.com. This is Intermediate Season 1 Lesson 6 - What's Wrong with your Finnish Camera? Eric here. |
| Päivi: Hei! I'm Päivi. |
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to explain a problem. The conversation takes place at a phone shop. |
| Päivi: It's between Heikki and an employee. |
| Eric: The speakers are strangers, so they'll use both formal and informal Finnish. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Heikki: Hei. Ostin teiltä puhelimen pari kuukautta sitten. Puhelimen kamera ei toimi enää kunnolla. |
| Työntekijä: Ahaa. Mikä on vialla? |
| Heikki: Kamera ei tarkenna enää ollenkaan. Tarvitsen kameraa työssäni, joten tämä on todella ongelmallista. |
| Työntekijä: Onko teillä kuitti tallella? |
| Heikki: Kyllä on, kas tässä. |
| Työntekijä: Selvä, kiitos. Kuitin mukaan puhelimessa on vielä takuu voimassa, joten voimme korjata sen veloituksetta. |
| Heikki: Kuinka kauan siinä kestää? |
| Työntekijä: Noin kaksi viikkoa. |
| Heikki: En voi olla ilman puhelinta niin kauan! |
| Työntekijä: Saatte varapuhelimen korjauksen ajaksi, mutta nämä ovat vain perusmalleja, eikä näissä ole kameraa. |
| Heikki: Ahaa.. selvä. Minun täytyy sitten yrittää saada ystäviltäni kameraa lainaksi. |
| Eric: Listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Heikki: Hello. I bought a phone from you a couple of months ago. The camera on the phone isn’t working properly anymore. |
| Employee: I see. What’s wrong? |
| Heikki: The camera doesn't focus at all anymore. I need the camera for my job, so this is really a problem for me. |
| Employee: Do you still have your receipt intact? |
| Heikki: Yes I do, here you go. |
| Employee: Right, thank you. According to the receipt the phone is still under warranty, so we can fix it free of charge. |
| Heikki: How long does it take? |
| Employee: Approximately two weeks. |
| Heikki: I can't be without a phone for that long! |
| Employee: You’ll get a spare phone for the duration of the repair work, but these are just basic models, which don't have cameras. |
| Heikki: I see... okay. Well, I suppose I need to try to borrow a camera from my friends then. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Päivi, are consumer groups strong in Finland? |
| Päivi: Yes, mostly because there are pretty good laws in Finland to ensure the fair treatment of consumers and also traders. |
| Eric: What if someone wants to complain, like in the dialogue, what can they do? |
| Päivi: In cases of complaint, consumers can usually contact the company in question directly first and seek compensation. If the issue can't be resolved between the consumer and company, the Consumer Disputes Board will settle it. |
| Eric: I see, is there any specific rule or law that we should keep in mind when we’re visiting Finland and shopping? |
| Päivi: From the beginning of 2014, customers must always be offered a receipt for their purchases stating the contact details of the company, details of the product being bought, the price, and the amount of VAT. This rule doesn’t apply to goods bought in outdoor markets, though. |
| Eric: Good to know. |
| Päivi: You might also find a TV program called Kuningaskuluttaja, "The King of Consumers," interesting. It's about topical issues like product quality and consumer rights. |
| Eric: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Päivi: toimia [natural native speed] |
| Eric: work |
| Päivi: toimia[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: toimia [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Päivi: kunnolla [natural native speed] |
| Eric: properly |
| Päivi: kunnolla[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: kunnolla [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Päivi: tarkentaa [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to focus |
| Päivi: tarkentaa[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: tarkentaa [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Päivi: ollenkaan [natural native speed] |
| Eric: at all |
| Päivi: ollenkaan[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: ollenkaan [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Päivi: kuitti [natural native speed] |
| Eric: receipt |
| Päivi: kuitti[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: kuitti [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Päivi: tallella [natural native speed] |
| Eric: intact |
| Päivi: tallella[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: tallella [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Päivi: takuu [natural native speed] |
| Eric: guarantee, warranty |
| Päivi: takuu[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: takuu [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Päivi: veloitukseton [natural native speed] |
| Eric: free of charge |
| Päivi: veloitukseton[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: veloitukseton [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And lastly.. |
| Päivi: perusmalli [natural native speed] |
| Eric: basic model |
| Päivi: perusmalli[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Päivi: perusmalli [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let's have a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is.. |
| Päivi: ei toimia kunnolla. |
| Eric: meaning "to not work properly." |
| Päivi: The phrase is made up of 3 parts, ei, meaning "no" or "not," the verb toimia, meaning "to function," and the adverb kunnolla meaning "properly." If you want to say something is not working at all, you can just leave out the word kunnolla, meaning "properly." And on the other hand, if you want to say something works properly, you can leave out the negation and use the expression toimia kunnolla, meaning "to work properly." |
| Eric: Can you give us an example using the first phrase? |
| Päivi: Sure. For example, you can say.. Lukko ei toimi enää kunnolla. |
| Eric: ..which means "The lock does not work well anymore." Okay, what's the next word? |
| Päivi: varapuhelin |
| Eric: meaning "spare phone." |
| Päivi: vara means "spare" and puhelin means "phone." |
| Eric: You can use the structure of this word to make other expressions for "spare" something. |
| Päivi: Just take the first part, vara, and join it with another noun. For example, vara-auto or vara-avain. |
| Eric: Meaning "spare car" and "spare key," respectively. Can you give us an example using the word meaning “spare phone”? |
| Päivi: Sure. For example, you can say.. Voitko lainata minulle varapuhelintasi? |
| Eric: .. which means "Can you lend me your spare phone?" Okay, what's the next word? |
| Päivi: perusmalli |
| Eric: meaning "basic model." |
| Päivi: perus means "basic," and malli means "model." |
| Eric: Can you make other similar words in the same way as with "spare"? |
| Päivi: Yes, you can take the first part, perus, and join it with another noun. For example, peruspyörä, meaning "basic bike." |
| Eric: So a bike without any special features. Can you give us an example using the word meaning “basic model”? |
| Päivi: Sure. For example, you can say.. Tässä perusmallissa ei ole mitään erikoisuuksia. |
| Eric: .. which means "There are no special features in this basic model." Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: In this lesson, you'll learn how to explain a problem. To do this, we will talk in detail about the indicative present tense. |
| Päivi: The indicative is a general mood that does not have a specific identifier, but all the personal suffixes are added to the verb stem. The indicative mood can have all tenses. |
| Eric: The indicative is used to express statements about facts, to indicate feelings, opinions, and beliefs, and it can also be used in hypotheses and conditions. |
| Päivi: Right. For example, Jos painan tästä napista… |
| Eric: which means “If I push this button…” So to explain a problem, we can use the indicative present tense to help us. |
| Päivi: There are 5 main cases in which we can use it, and the first is to express habitual actions, for example Ruutu sammuu joka kerta. |
| Eric: Which means "The screen switches off every time." |
| Päivi: The second case is where it can be used to express an ongoing action, for example, Kytkin pitää kovaa ääntä. |
| Eric: "The switch is making a loud noise." |
| Päivi: Third is to express an action that will happen in the immediate future, for example, Virta loppuu viiden minuutin kuluttua. |
| Eric: "The power will run out after five minutes." |
| Päivi: Fourth is to express a permanent state or a recurring action, for example, Varaosaliike on liian kaukana. |
| Eric: "The spare parts shop is too far away." |
| Päivi: Finally, it's used to express how long the subject has been performing an action, for example, Se on välkkynyt kaksi tuntia. |
| Eric: "It has been blinking for two hours." Listeners, check the lesson notes to review the personal suffixes. Now let’s see how to do negation. |
| Päivi: We had an example in the dialogue. Kamera ei tarkenna enää ollenkaan. |
| Eric: Which means “The camera does not focus at all anymore.” In Finnish, the negation is expressed through another verb form, the negative verb. |
| Päivi: The negative verb, ei, is also an auxiliary verb. |
| Eric: Auxiliary verbs usually accompany a main verb. The main verb provides the main semantic content of the clause. |
| Päivi: The negative verb form does not change according to tense or mood, but each grammatical person has a form. |
| Eric: Let’s start with the first person, singular and plural. |
| Päivi: en and emme |
| Eric: Second person, singular and plural. |
| Päivi: et and ette |
| Eric: Third person, singular and plural. |
| Päivi:ei and eivät |
| Eric: Verbs are negated by adding the negative verb in front of the main verb, which will lose its personal ending. The main verb is written in its stem form. When you have an issue with a product or products, you will probably use the singular 3rd or the plural 3rd to express the problem. Päivi, could you give us an example? |
| Päivi: Let’s start with “to be,” ei ole and eivät ole, |
| Eric: respectively meaning “is not” and “are not.” |
| Päivi: Here’s another, ei toimi and eivät toimi, |
| Eric: respectively meaning “does not function” and “do not function”. Ok, finally let’s have a look at the conjunctions and adverbs in a negative sentence. |
| Päivi: The conjunctions -ka and -kä can also be used in a negative sentence to replace ja, |
| Eric: which means “and." Let’s hear an example. |
| Päivi: Nämä ovat vain perusmalleja, eikä näissä ole kameraa. |
| Eric: “These are only basic models, and they don’t have a camera.” |
| Päivi: As for adverbs, there are some that can be used together with a negative verb to emphasize the situation, such as ollenkaan and lainkaan, |
| Eric: both meaning “at all.” |
| Päivi: For example, Tämä ei jousta lainkaan. |
| Eric: “This does not stretch at all.” Ok, let’s wrap up the lesson with some sample sentences that sum up what we have talked about. |
| Päivi: Avain on vääntynyt, en voi avata ovea. |
| Eric: "The key is twisted, I can't open the door." |
| Päivi: Kynästä ei tule enää mustetta. |
| Eric: "There is no more ink coming from the pen." |
| Päivi: Paperi on loppu, tämä on todella harmillista. |
| Eric: "The paper has run out, this is really annoying." |
Outro |
| Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Päivi: Hei hei! |
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