Learn how to talk about unspecified human actors
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Matt: Hello, everybody! Welcome back to FinnishPod101.com! This is Lower Beginner Season 1, lesson 25 - What Are Those Finnish People Doing? I’m Matt. |
| Nico: Hei, minä olen Nico. Hi, I’m Nico. |
| Matt: In this final lesson of the series, you’ll learn how to talk about actions without saying who’s doing them. The conversation takes place on the street. |
| Nico: Satu and Petri have gone for a walk and see something interesting. They're a couple, so they’ll be speaking standard Finnish in the casual register. |
| Matt: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Satu: Katso, tuosta kaadetaan puita. |
| Petri: Siihen rakennetaan uusia taloja. |
| Satu: Jätetäänköhän siihen yhtään puuta? |
| Petri: Toivotaan. Tai sitten siihen istutetaan jotain uutta. |
| Satu: Ei kai kukaan halua asua talossa, jonka ympärillä ei ole mitään vihreää. |
| Matt: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Satu: Katso, tuosta kaadetaan puita. |
| Petri: Siihen rakennetaan uusia taloja. |
| Satu: Jätetäänköhän siihen yhtään puuta? |
| Petri: Toivotaan. Tai sitten siihen istutetaan jotain uutta. |
| Satu: Ei kai kukaan halua asua talossa, jonka ympärillä ei ole mitään vihreää. |
| Matt: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Satu: Katso, tuosta kaadetaan puita. |
| : Look, they're felling trees over there. |
| Petri: Siihen rakennetaan uusia taloja. |
| : They'll be building new houses there. |
| Satu: Jätetäänköhän siihen yhtään puuta? |
| : I wonder if they'll leave any trees standing? |
| Petri: Toivotaan. Tai sitten siihen istutetaan jotain uutta. |
| : Let’s hope so. Or maybe they'll plant something new there. |
| Satu: Ei kai kukaan halua asua talossa, jonka ympärillä ei ole mitään vihreää. |
| : I suppose no one wants to live in a house that doesn’t have anything green around it. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Matt: Is there a lot of construction going on in Finland? |
| Nico: Oh yes, especially in cities, such as the Helsinki area. Finland has experienced urbanization just like so many other countries. |
| Matt: People move from small towns into cities to work or study, and there’s a constant need for new homes. And prices also go up in places where demand is high. |
| Nico: That’s right. You could buy a big single-family home in a small town for the price of a small apartment in Helsinki. And some people are actually taking advantage of the possibility to work remotely and have moved out of cities into small towns. |
| Matt: I wonder if that will increase in the future. |
| Nico: We’ll see. But at least for now, cities are growing. For example, the Helsinki subway is being extended into Espoo so that people can commute more easily. |
| Matt: I see. 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: |
| : kaataa [natural native speed] |
| : to pour, to turn over, to fell |
| : kaataa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : kaataa [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : puu [natural native speed] |
| : tree, wood |
| : puu [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : puu [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : rakentaa [natural native speed] |
| : to build |
| : rakentaa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : rakentaa [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : talo [natural native speed] |
| : house |
| : talo [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : talo [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : jättää [natural native speed] |
| : to leave |
| : jättää [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : jättää [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : toivoa [natural native speed] |
| : to hope |
| : toivoa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : toivoa [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : istuttaa [natural native speed] |
| : to plant |
| : istuttaa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : istuttaa [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : kukaan [natural native speed] |
| : anyone, no one |
| : kukaan [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : kukaan [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| : asua [natural native speed] |
| : live |
| : asua [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : asua [natural native speed] |
| : And Last: |
| : ympärillä [natural native speed] |
| : around |
| : ympärillä [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| : ympärillä [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Matt: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. What’s our first word? |
| Nico: It’s puu. |
| Matt: It can mean both a live tree and the material, “wood”. Nico, does it also mean a forest? |
| Nico: No, we have a different word for that. Puu is just a single tree or the material. |
| Matt: Okay. Are there any useful compound words using this word that we should know? |
| Nico: Hmm… Puulattia is “wooden floor”, and polttopuut is “firewood”. If you hear the word puusilmä in an ice hockey match, the referee has probably missed a situation. Puusilmä is literally “wooden eye”. |
| Matt: [laughs] I see. What’s the next word? |
| Nico: It’s talo, or “house”. |
| Matt: It usually refers to a residential building. |
| Nico: Other kinds of buildings would be rakennus. For example, an “office building” is toimistorakennus in Finnish. |
| Matt: Is talo a single-family home, or can it be another type as well? |
| Nico: It can be another type as well. A “single-family house” is omakotitalo in Finnish, whereas an “apartment house” is kerrostalo, and a “row house” or “terrace house” is rivitalo. |
| Matt: What’s next? |
| Nico: Kukaan. |
| Matt: This is a pronoun that means “anyone” or “no one”. It’s usually used in questions or negative sentences. Now, pronouns are sometimes inflected in irregular ways. How does it work with this word? |
| Nico: It's a little irregular. Most of the plural forms are never used, and some of the singular ones have two or three variants. The genitive form is kenenkään and the partitive is ketään. |
| Matt: We’ve listed all the forms in the lesson notes, so please check them there. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Matt: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use a verb form that indicates that an action is done by an unspecified human actor. Nico, does an unspecified human actor mean the speaker doesn’t know who the actor is, or that they just don’t say it? |
| Nico: It could be either. It could also be that it doesn’t really matter who the actor is, because the emphasis is on the action itself. |
| Matt: You use it when you want to say what people in general do. Now, this sounds rather vague, but hopefully some examples will clear it up. But let’s see the formation first. |
| Nico: There are two different kinds of verbs that have a different formation. You have to look at the second to last letter in the infinitive form. |
| Matt: The infinitive is the form you have in a dictionary, right? |
| Nico: That’s right. If the second to last letter is a vowel, you take the stem from the first person singular and add -taan or -tään. |
| Matt: Can you give us an example? |
| Nico: Certainly. Let’s take the verb toivoa “to wish”. The second to last letter in toivoa is -o, so you take the first person singular form, which is toivon. |
| Matt: What next? |
| Nico: Remove the -n to get the stem toivo- and add -taan, so you get toivotaan. If the last letter of the stem is an -a or -ä, it changes into an -e. For example, for the verb rakentaa meaning “to build”, the first person singular is rakennan, and the stem is rakenna-, so the unspecified actor form is rakennetaan. |
| Matt: All right. How about the second type of verb? |
| Nico: That’s easy. For all other verbs, you just add -an or -än to the infinitive. |
| Matt: So there’s no need to take the first person singular? |
| Nico: No. For example, from the infinitive olla meaning “to be,” you get ollaan. From haluta meaning “to want,” you get halutaan, and from kuunnella meaning “to listen”, you get kuunnellaan. |
| Matt: Great. What would be a typical sentence with this verb form? |
| Nico: For example, Suomessa juodaan paljon kahvia which means “In Finland, people drink a lot of coffee.” Or, Tuolla pelataan jalkapalloa. which means “There are people over there playing football.” |
| Matt: I think I’ve heard people use this for something they’re doing themselves. |
| Nico: That’s right. In spoken Finnish, it’s used instead of the regular first person plural forms, especially in the imperative. So you’d say Mennään elokuviin instead of Menkäämme elokuviin when you mean “Let’s go to the movies.” |
| Matt: Listeners, remember to check the lesson notes for more information and examples from this lesson. |
Outro |
| Matt: All right. That’s all for this lesson, and for this series. We hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. If you have any questions or comments, you can leave us a message at FinnishPod101.com. |
| Nico: We’re happy to help! |
| Matt: Thanks for listening everyone, and we’ll see you in another series. Bye! |
| Nico: Hei hei! |
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