Learn how to make the negative form of the imperfect tense
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Brandon: Hello, and welcome to FinnishPod101.com! This is Lower Beginner Season 1, lesson 14. He Didn’t Say A Single Finnish Word. I’m Brandon. |
| Nico: Hei kaikki, minä olen Nico. Hi everybody, I’m Nico. |
| Brandon: In this lesson, we’re going to revisit the imperfect tense. |
| Nico: That’s right. We’re going to learn how to say something did not happen. |
| Brandon: This dialogue takes place at work. |
| Nico: The conversation is between Hanna and Petri. They're colleagues, and they'll be speaking standard Finnish in the casual register. |
| Brandon: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| (Nico, please record Petri’s lines here and skip Hanna’s lines.) |
| Hanna: Näitkö, että keittiössä on keksejä? |
| Petri: En nähnyt. |
| Hanna: Matti palasi tänään lomalta. |
| Petri: Kävikö hän jossain ulkomailla? |
| Hanna: Hän ei sanonut, mutta keksit eivät olleet ulkomaalaisia. |
| Brandon: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Hanna: Näitkö, että keittiössä on keksejä? |
| Petri: En nähnyt. |
| Hanna: Matti palasi tänään lomalta. |
| Petri: Kävikö hän jossain ulkomailla? |
| Hanna: Hän ei sanonut, mutta keksit eivät olleet ulkomaalaisia. |
| Brandon: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Hanna: Näitkö, että keittiössä on keksejä? |
| Did you see there are cookies in the kitchen? |
| Petri: En nähnyt. |
| No, I didn’t. |
| Hanna: Matti palasi tänään lomalta. |
| Matti returned from vacation today. |
| Petri: Kävikö hän jossain ulkomailla? |
| Did he go somewhere abroad? |
| Hanna: Hän ei sanonut, mutta keksit eivät olleet ulkomaalaisia. |
| He didn’t say, but the cookies were not from abroad. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Brandon: Do you have to bring something to your colleagues when you come back from vacation? |
| Nico: No, you don’t have to. But many do, especially if they’ve been abroad. |
| Brandon: Would it be something from the country they’ve been to, then? |
| Nico: Typically, yes. Usually it’s chocolate, candy, or cookies from that country. But your colleagues will be quite happy to eat whatever you bring, but it doesn’t need to be anything special or expensive. |
| Brandon: That’s good. I wouldn’t want to spend my holiday trying to find something special for my colleagues. |
| Nico: Many also bring something to their colleagues when they are going on extended leave, such as maternity or paternity leave. Some even bake a cake or make cookies themselves. |
| Brandon: That sounds great. Okay. Now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Brandon: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we shall see is: |
| nähdä [natural native speed] |
| to see |
| nähdä [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| nähdä [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| että [natural native speed] |
| that |
| että [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| että [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| keksi [natural native speed] |
| cookie, biscuit |
| keksi [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| keksi [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| palata [natural native speed] |
| to return |
| palata [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| palata [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| loma [natural native speed] |
| vacation |
| loma [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| loma [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| ulkomailla [natural native speed] |
| abroad |
| ulkomailla [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| ulkomailla [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| sanoa [natural native speed] |
| to say, to tell |
| sanoa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| sanoa [natural native speed] |
| And Last: |
| ulkomainen [natural native speed] |
| foreign, from another country |
| ulkomainen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| ulkomainen [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Brandon: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Nico: Our first word is keksi. It would be called a “cookie” or “biscuit” in English. |
| Brandon: Cookie and biscuit mean different things in different countries, what does it mean in Finnish? |
| Nico: Well, it could be sweet, like a chocolate cookie, or savoury, like a cream cracker. But it’s usually dry, and relatively thin. |
| Brandon: So you wouldn’t use this word for a soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie? |
| Nico: Hmm, it’s very hard to draw the line… You could, but you might be more likely to call them pikkuleipä. Keksi and pikkuleipä are almost synonymous, but the thinner and drier the thing is, the more likely it’s called a keksi. A pikkuleipä is always sweet, never savoury, even though it means “small bread” in English. |
| Brandon: That’s interesting. What’s our next word? |
| Nico: We have two words that are derived from the word ulkomaa, which is literally “outland”. The word ulkomaa is not really used as such. Sometimes you see its plural form ulkomaat when referring to several countries, but the singular form is not really used by itself. |
| Brandon: Okay. What words can be derived from this word? |
| Nico: First, we get ulkomailla, which means “abroad” in the sense of being abroad. It’s originally an adhesive plural form of the noun, but it’s used as an adverb. |
| Brandon: Are there other adverbs that mean going abroad and coming back? |
| Nico: Indeed, there are. Ulkomaille is used when someone is going abroad, and ulkomailta is used when they come back. |
| Brandon: Okay. What’s the next word? |
| Nico: It’s ulkomainen, meaning “foreign”. That’s an adjective formed with the -inen ending that’s rather like the English “-ish”. |
| Brandon: So it could be translated literally as “outlandish”? |
| Nico: Kind of, yes, but it doesn’t have the “odd” or “weird” connotations that the English word has. It’s simply the opposite of kotimainen, or “domestic”. |
| Brandon: Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Brandon: In this lesson, you’ll learn about the imperfect tense and how to say that something did not happen. Let’s have a quick review of the related grammar points before we get started. |
| Nico: Okay. Let’s take the verb nähdä, “to see”. In the present tense, “I see” would be Minä näen. “You see” is Sinä näet, “He sees” is Hän näkee, and so on. |
| Brandon: How about the negative present tense forms? |
| Nico: For that, you need the negation verb that takes the personal endings from the main verb. So, “I don’t see” would be Minä en näe. The verb Näen in the positive is changed into En näe in the negative. |
| Brandon: Do you need to use the negation verb in the imperfect tense? |
| Nico: yes. The imperfect form “I saw” would be Minä näin, and “I didn’t see” would be Minä en nähnyt. |
| Brandon: But the main verb is different from the present negative form. |
| Nico: Yes, the form used in the imperfect negative form is the past participle we learned in lesson 11, so you can go back and review that if you don’t quite remember how to form it. The participle ends in -nut or -nyt for the singular, and -neet in the plural. |
| Brandon: So, to say something didn't happen, you take the negation verb with the appropriate personal ending, and then the past participle. |
| Nico: Exactly. |
| Brandon: Great. Let’s make some sentences. How would you say “They didn’t see a flower”? |
| Nico: He eivät nähneet kukkaa. |
| Brandon: “We didn’t go to the movies”? |
| Nico: Me emme menneet elokuviin. |
| Brandon: “Sari didn’t go to the grocery store yesterday”? |
| Nico: Sari ei käynyt eilen kaupassa. |
| Brandon: Listeners, now it’s your turn. I’ll say a sentence in English, and Nico will say it in Finnish in the positive imperfect form. Your job is to turn it into a negative imperfect sentence. The first sentence is “I missed the bus.” |
| Nico: Myöhästyin bussista. |
| [Pause] |
| Brandon: The answer is.. |
| Nico: En myöhästynyt bussista. |
| Brandon: Here’s another one. “He forgot my birthday.” |
| Nico: Hän unohti syntymäpäiväni. |
| [Pause] |
| Brandon: The answer is.. |
| Nico: Hän ei unohtanut syntymäpäivääni. |
| We had a little trick here - did you remember that the object is always in the partitive case in negative sentences? That’s why Syntymäpäiväni becomes syntymäpäivääni in the negative sentence. |
Outro |
|---|
| Brandon: All right, that’s it for this lesson. |
| Nico: Thanks for listening, everyone! Hei hei! |
Comments
Hide