Learn how to ask and talk about your opinion
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Brandon: Hello, everyone! Welcome back to FinnishPod101.com! This is Lower Beginner Season 1, lesson 22. What Do You Think About This Finnish…Thing? I’m Brandon. |
| Nico: Hei, minä olen Nico. Hi, I’m Nico. |
| Brandon: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to ask and express opinions. The conversation takes place at work. |
| Nico: Mari asks Petri and Hanna their opinions about something. They're colleagues, so they’ll be speaking standard Finnish in the casual register. |
| Brandon: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Mari: Mitä mieltä te olette? Pitäisikö muuttaa toimintoa vai pitää vanha? |
| Petri: Minun mielestäni kannattaa muuttaa. |
| Hanna: Minä olen samaa mieltä. Minun mielestäni nykyinen toiminto on vaikea käyttää. |
| Mari: Selvä. Kysyn vielä muidenkin mielipidettä. |
| Brandon: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Mari: Mitä mieltä te olette? Pitäisikö muuttaa toimintoa vai pitää vanha? |
| Petri: Minun mielestäni kannattaa muuttaa. |
| Hanna: Minä olen samaa mieltä. Minun mielestäni nykyinen toiminto on vaikea käyttää. |
| Mari: Selvä. Kysyn vielä muidenkin mielipidettä. |
| Brandon: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Mari: Mitä mieltä te olette? Pitäisikö muuttaa toimintoa vai pitää vanha? |
| : What do you think? Should we change the functionality or keep the old one? |
| Petri: Minun mielestäni kannattaa muuttaa. |
| : I think it would be good to change it. |
| Hanna: Minä olen samaa mieltä. Minun mielestäni nykyinen toiminto on vaikea käyttää. |
| : I agree. I think the current functionality is difficult to use. |
| Mari: Selvä. Kysyn vielä muidenkin mielipidettä. |
| : Okay. I’ll ask the others for their opinions, as well. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Brandon: Petri is a programmer, so I suppose this is related to some software they're making. Are there a lot of software companies in Finland? |
| Nico: I think so. Well, at least they’ve had a lot of publicity during the past few years. There are a few companies that have been doing really well. |
| Brandon: What do they do? |
| Nico: Mobile games. You’ve probably heard of Angry Birds, Clash of Clans or Hay Day. |
| Brandon: Sure, but I didn’t know they were Finnish games! |
| Nico: They are. They’ve received a huge amount of publicity in Finland because they’ve been such big hits worldwide. |
| Brandon: And I’ve heard you can’t really go anywhere without running into Angry Birds plush toys or other merchandise. I’ve even seen them here on the other side of the globe! It’s amazing how a small thing like a mobile game can spread like that. Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| : Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| : The first word we shall see is: |
| : mieli [natural native speed] |
| : mind |
| : mieli [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : mieli [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : muuttaa [natural native speed] |
| : to change |
| : muuttaa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : muuttaa [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : toiminto [natural native speed] |
| : functionality, function |
| : toiminto [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : toiminto [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : vanha [natural native speed] |
| : old |
| : vanha [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : vanha [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : kannattaa [natural native speed] |
| : to support, to be profitable, to be worth the trouble |
| : kannattaa [slowly - broken down by syllab le] |
| : kannattaa [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : sama [natural native speed] |
| : same |
| : sama [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : sama [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : nykyinen [natural native speed] |
| : current, present |
| : nykyinen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : nykyinen [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : käyttää [natural native speed] |
| : use |
| : käyttää [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : käyttää [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : muu [natural native speed] |
| : other |
| : muu [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : muu [natural native speed] |
| : And Last: |
| : mielipide [natural native speed] |
| : opinion |
| : mielipide [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : mielipide [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Brandon: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. What’s the first word? |
| Nico: It’s Mieli. |
| Brandon: It means “mind” or “mood”. |
| Nico: For example, you could ask someone Mitä sinulla on mielessä? |
| Brandon: Which means “What do you have in mind?” in English. |
| Nico: Or, you could ask Millä mielellä olet tänään? meaning “What’s your mood today?” |
| Brandon: In the dialogue, it was used when talking about opinions. Does it also mean “opinion”? |
| Nico: Not as such, but it’s closely related. The word for “opinion” is mielipide, so it does have mieli as the first part. But mieli is used in expressions for asking and talking about opinions. |
| Brandon: We’ll have a closer look at those in the grammar section. What’s the next word? |
| Nico: Muuttaa. It means “to change”, “to turn into” or “to move”. |
| Brandon: So you mean “turn into” as in “to turn a prince into a frog”? |
| Nico: Yes, exactly. “The witch turned the prince into a frog” would be Noita muutti prinssin sammakoksi in Finnish. |
| Brandon: It means you change something so that it becomes different, but you don’t swap it for something else. |
| Nico: It can also mean “to move” in the sense of “to move house”. “We moved to Helsinki last year” is Muutimme viime vuonna Helsinkiin. |
| Brandon: Okay. What’s the next word? |
| Nico: It’s Kannattaa. This word has a concrete meaning of supporting or holding something up, for example pylväät kannattavat kattoa - “the columns support the roof”. It can also mean “to support” in a more abstract sense, like in Mitä joukkuetta kannatat? - “Which team do you support?” |
| Brandon: That still doesn’t quite sound like the meaning we had in the dialogue. Wasn’t it something like “to be good” in the dialogue? |
| Nico: Yes. It’s also used in the sense “to be profitable”, “to pay”, or “to be worth doing” in general. For example, the saying “Crime doesn’t pay” is Rikos ei kannata in Finnish. |
| Brandon: Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Brandon: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to express opinions. We actually had two constructions for that in the dialogue. |
| Nico: That’s right. They were rather similar, but still a bit different. Both of them had the word mieli in them. |
| Brandon: And what were they? |
| Nico: The first one has the word mieltä in the partitive. Mari said Mitä mieltä te olette? meaning “What do you think?” and Hanna said Minä olen samaa mieltä meaning “I agree”. |
| Brandon: OK, What’s the second construction? |
| Nico: Minun mielestäni..., which means “In my opinion…” |
| Brandon: But we’ll only cover the first construction in this lesson. |
| Nico: We have information about minun mielestäni in the lesson notes, so you can read about it there. |
| Brandon: Okay, now how do you use the first construction? |
| Nico: In order to tell someone your opinion, you start with Minä olen, “I am”, and then say sitä mieltä, että, which means “of the opinion that.” And then you follow with a sentence that contains the opinion. |
| Brandon: Can you give us an example? |
| Nic: Sure. Minä olen sitä mieltä, että tuo mekko sopii sinulle. |
| Brandon: This means “I think that dress suits you.” If you want to say what someone else thinks, you only need to change the beginning. |
| Nico: Instead of Minä olen, you’d say sinä olet meaning “you are” or something like hän on meaning “he or she is”. |
| Brandon: So the middle part doesn’t change at all? |
| Nico: That’s right. Sitä mieltä, että is always the same. |
| Brandon: And what follows after that is just a normal sentence, so there’s nothing difficult there, either. How do you say you agree or disagree with something someone else has said? |
| Nico: You simply add samaa, which means “same”, or eri, which means “different”. Minä olen samaa mieltä which means “I agree,” or Minä olen eri mieltä which means “I disagree.” So, in this case you don’t use sitä mieltä, että?” You only use that when you actually say what your opinion is. |
| Brandon: Okay, let’s have one more example. How would you say “Mom thought the table was too small”? |
| Nico: Äiti oli sitä mieltä, että pöytä oli liian pieni. |
| Brandon: Listeners, it’s your turn. I’ll say a sentence in English, and your job is to say it out loud in Finnish. Here’s the first sentence. “Dad disagreed.” |
| [Pause] |
| Brandon: The answer is.. |
| Nico: Isä oli eri mieltä. |
| Brandon: Here’s another. “What do you think?”. Make sure “you” is singular here. |
| [Pause] |
| Brandon: The answer is.. |
| Nico: Mitä mieltä sinä olet? |
Outro |
| Brandon: Okay, we hope you got it. As always, remember to check the lesson notes for more information and examples. And that’s all for this lesson. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Bye! |
| Nico: Hei hei! |
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