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Lesson Transcript

Hei, minun nimeni on Paula. Hi everybody! I’m Paula.
Welcome to FinnishPod101.com’s “Suomea kolmessa minuutissa”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Finnish.
In the last lesson, we learned how to use the verb tehdä which means "to do" in Finnish.
In this lesson, we will learn how to use pitää, the third verb in our series dedicated to commonly used Finnish verbs.
Pitää actually has two completely different meanings. It can either mean “to hold”, or the one we are going to learn about now, “to like”.
Let’s see how to conjugate it!
Minä pidän, “I like”, sinä pidät, “you like”, hän pitää, “he likes”, me pidämme, “we like”, te pidätte, “you like”, and he pitävät, “they like”.
Here is a question that Finns often like to ask:
Pidätkö sinä salmiakista?
Salmiakki is a salty liquorice candy that some people love, and others hate. So if you happen to like salmiakki, you would reply
Kyllä, minä pidän salmiakista.
[slowly] Kyllä, minä pidän salmiakista.
So let’s break down the answer.
First we had-
Kyllä, which is simply "Yes."
Then minä which is "I" in Finnish. After which we have pidän, which is the conjugated form of the verb pitää.
And finally the word salmiakki.
Because salmiakki is the object of the liking, it gets the grammatical case ending -sta. And as it has a double K consonant, one of them must be removed, so the final form is salmiakista.
Kyllä, minä pidän salmiakista.
You can use this verb together with other verbs as well, to express that you like performing an action. For example, if you like ice skating, you would say minä pidän luistelusta.
[slowly] Minä pidän luistelusta.
Luistelu means “ice skating”, and here you also have to add the ending -sta, so it becomes luistelusta.
You can also use this verb when talking about a person. The same way as in English you would say “I like you”, in Finnish you can say
Minä pidän sinusta.
[slowly] Minä pidän sinusta.
This is a verb you can casually use when you want to show affection towards someone, whether it was a friend, boyfriend, or family member. When you want to indicate deeper feelings, you can use the verb rakastaa, “to love”.
The usage of rakastaa is the same as in English. Even if you didn’t feel completely comfortable using it towards a person, you can very casually use it about other things you like a lot. For example, the same way as in English you could say “I love ice cream”, in Finnish you would say
Minä rakastan jäätelöä.
Now it’s time for Paula’s Points.
I’d also like to introduce another verb very commonly used for saying “to like”. It is tykätä. The meaning and usage are the same as for the verb pitää, but tykätä is slightly more casual, and used when talking with friends.
So when a friend asks you about your interests, you could answer
Minä tykkään jalkapallosta, which means I like football.
If your teacher asks you the same question, you might want to answer
Minä pidän jalkapallosta, which is just slightly more polite.
However, they are both commonly used so you don’t have to feel pressure about which one to use!
In this lesson, we learned how to use the verb pitää and more!
Next time we’ll learn another very useful verb, tulla.
Do you have any idea what it might mean? You’ll find out in the next Suomea kolmessa minuutissa lesson.
Nähdään pian!

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