Learn how to talk about various degrees of uncertainty
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Brandon: Hello, and welcome to FinnishPod101.com! This is Lower Beginner season 1, lesson 12. It Should Be Warm Tomorrow In Finland. I’m Brandon. |
| Nico: Hei, minä olen Nico. Hi, I’m Nico. |
| Brandon: In this lesson, you’re going to learn some common words for expressing uncertainty. The conversation takes place at home. |
| Nico: The conversation is between Petri and his wife Satu. They’re talking about the weather. They’ll be speaking standard Finnish in the casual register. |
| Brandon: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Petri: Huomenna pitäisi olla aika lämmintä. |
| Satu: Entä loppuviikolla? |
| Petri: Ylihuomenna saattaa vielä tulla sadekuuroja, mutta loppuviikolla pitäisi olla poutaa. |
| Satu: Onko tuulista? |
| Petri: Ei kovin. Tuulta on neljä metriä sekunnissa. |
| English Host: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Petri: Huomenna pitäisi olla aika lämmintä. |
| Satu: Entä loppuviikolla? |
| Petri: Ylihuomenna saattaa vielä tulla sadekuuroja, mutta loppuviikolla pitäisi olla poutaa. |
| Satu: Onko tuulista? |
| Petri: Ei kovin. Tuulta on neljä metriä sekunnissa. |
| English Host: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Petri: Huomenna pitäisi olla aika lämmintä. |
| Brandon: It should be rather warm tomorrow. |
| Satu: Entä loppuviikolla? |
| Brandon: How about the rest of the week? |
| Petri: Ylihuomenna saattaa vielä tulla sadekuuroja, mutta loppuviikolla pitäisi olla poutaa. |
| Brandon: There may still be some showers the day after tomorrow, but the rest of the week should be dry. |
| Satu: Onko tuulista? |
| Brandon: Will it be windy? |
| Petri: Ei kovin. Tuulta on neljä metriä sekunnissa. |
| Brandon: Not very. The wind will be four meters per second. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Brandon: Do Finns pay attention to weather forecasts? |
| Nico: Oh yes. People want to know what’s coming up, and it’s also a good topic for small talk. You’ll often hear people say things like Huomiseksi luvattiin poutaa “Tomorrow’s forecast is no rain.” |
| Brandon: You mean they actually use the verb luvata? But that’s “to promise”, right? They don’t promise you anything in weather forecasts, do they? |
| Nico: [laughs] No, of course not. And people don’t really mean it that way, it’s just something they say. Still, meteorologists do get annoyed feedback if their forecast is wrong. |
| Brandon: Does that happen often? |
| Nico: Well, Finnish weather is difficult to forecast. But forecasts have improved lately, mainly because of computer models, I suppose. |
| Brandon: That’s good to know. Well, Let’s have a look at the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Brandon: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| : The first word we shall see is: |
| Nico: aika [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: rather, somewhat |
| Nico: aika [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: aika [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: lämmin [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: warm |
| Nico: lämmin [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: lämmin [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: ylihuomenna [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: the day after tomorrow |
| Nico: ylihuomenna [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: ylihuomenna [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: saattaa [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: may, to be possible |
| Nico: saattaa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: saattaa [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: sadekuuro [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: rain shower |
| Nico: sadekuuro [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: sadekuuro [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: pitää [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: to have to, should |
| Nico: pitää [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: pitää [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: pouta [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: dry weather |
| Nico: pouta [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: pouta [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: tuulinen [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: windy |
| Nico: tuulinen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: tuulinen [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: tuuli [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: wind |
| Nico: tuuli [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: tuuli [natural native speed] |
| : And last: |
| Nico: metriä sekunnissa [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: meters per second |
| Nico: metriä sekunnissa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: metriä sekunnissa [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Brandon: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. What’s the first word? |
| Nico: First, we have sadekuuro. It’s a brief shower of rain. When I think about a shower of rain, it makes me think of a certain song. |
| Brandon: A song? |
| Nico: Yes, it’s a song performed by Mikko Alatalo, a popular songwriter and singer. It’s a song that practically every Finn knows. |
| Brandon: Is it about rain showers? |
| Nico: Well, not really, but the refrain begins with Aurinko paistaa ja vettä sattaa, taitaa tulla kesä. That is, “The sun is shining and it’s raining, so it looks like the summer is coming”. |
| Brandon: Oh, you mean that the rain cloud is so small it doesn’t even block the sun? |
| Nico: Yes. Also, showers are more common in the summer, so that’s how he concludes the summer is coming. |
| Brandon: Okay. What’s the next word? |
| Nico: The next word is pouta. It means simply “it isn’t raining. “ |
| Brandon: Does it imply that the sun is shining? |
| Nico: No. It may be sunny or cloudy, but as long as it’s not raining, it’s pouta. There’s also the term pilvipouta, with the addition of pilvi, which means “cloud”. Pilvipouta means cloudy but dry weather. |
| Brandon: I see. What’s our next word? |
| Nico: Tuulinen. We had both tuuli and tuulinen in the dialogue. The -inen ending is used to turn nouns into adjectives. |
| Brandon: Are there other words with this ending? |
| Nico: Sure. For example, from aurinko or “the sun,” we get aurinkoinen meaning “sunny”, and from pilvi or “cloud,” we get pilvinen meaning “cloudy”. |
| Brandon: Alright. Now let’s move on to the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Brandon: In this lesson, you’ll learn some expressions of uncertainty. Let’s go over some words used in the dialogue one by one. |
| Nico: The first one was pitäisi. It’s a special kind of verb, but we’re not going to go into details now, so please learn it as a set phrase for the time being. |
| Brandon: How do you use it? |
| Nico: It’s used as a helping verb, that is, it will be followed by a main verb in the infinitive form. However, unlike normal helping verbs, the verb pitäisi doesn't change according to the person, and the person or thing that should do something is in the genitive form. So “they should come” would be Heidän pitäisi tulla instead of He pitäisivät tulla. |
| Brandon: Hmm, that sounds like we’ll need to dedicate a full lesson to it at some point. But, what other phrases do we have? |
| Nico: There was another helping verb, saattaa, which means “may”. It behaves like a normal helping verb, just like the ones we had in lesson 10. |
| Brandon: Okay. Can we have an example? |
| Nico: For example, you can say.. Sateenkaaren päässä saattaa olla kultaa which means “There may be gold at the end of a rainbow.” |
| Brandon: That doesn’t sound very likely. |
| Nico: That’s true. Saattaa is a pretty low-likelihood verb. |
| Brandon: OK, What’s the next word? |
| Nico: We had aika and kovin in the dialogue. They’re both adverbs and modify other adverbs or adjectives. In a way, they’re synonyms, because they both emphasize the word they modify. |
| Brandon: So they would mean something like “pretty much”? |
| Nico: Yes. Kovin is stronger than aika, though. Aika lämmintä would mean “rather warm”, but kovin lämmintä would be more like “very warm”. |
| Brandon: I see. |
| Nico: Also, aika can not be used in a negative sentence. In that case, you’ll have to use kovin. For example, if you want to say “not very warm”, you’ll have to say ei kovin lämmintä. |
| Brandon: Okay, so those are the ones we had in the dialogue. Are there any other ones our listeners should know? |
| Nico: Well, ehkä might come in handy. It means “maybe”. For example, Ehkä huomenna on parempi sää means “Maybe the weather will be better tomorrow”. |
Outro |
|---|
| Brandon: That’s it for this lesson! |
| Nico: Thanks for listening, everyone! Hei hei! |
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