Learn how to talk about the past
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Brandon: Hello, and welcome back to FinnishPod101! I’m Brandon. This is Lower Beginner season 1, lesson 7. How Did the Finnish Ice Hockey Team Do Yesterday? |
| Nico: Hei, minä olen Nico. Hi, I’m Nico. |
| Brandon: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about past events. |
| Nico: The conversation takes place at the office, or maybe over lunch. |
| Brandon: : The conversation is between Mari, Hanna, and Petri. They're colleagues, so they'll be speaking standard Finnish in the casual register. |
| Nico: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Mari: Katsoitteko eilen jääkiekkoa? |
| Hanna: Minä luin koko illan yhtä kirjaa. Se oli kauhean mielenkiintoinen. |
| Petri: Minä kyllä aioin, mutta olin liian väsynyt. Menin aikaisin nukkumaan. |
| Mari: Minä katsoin. Mutta kyllä minuakin nukutti. |
| English Host: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Mari: Katsoitteko eilen jääkiekkoa? |
| Hanna: Minä luin koko illan yhtä kirjaa. Se oli kauhean mielenkiintoinen. |
| Petri: Minä kyllä aioin, mutta olin liian väsynyt. Menin aikaisin nukkumaan. |
| Mari: Minä katsoin. Mutta kyllä minuakin nukutti. |
| English Host: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Mari: Katsoitteko eilen jääkiekkoa? |
| Brandon: Did you watch ice hockey yesterday? |
| Hanna: Minä luin koko illan yhtä kirjaa. Se oli kauhean mielenkiintoinen. |
| Brandon: I spent the whole evening reading a book. It was terribly interesting. |
| Petri: Minä kyllä aioin, mutta olin liian väsynyt. Menin aikaisin nukkumaan. |
| Brandon: I was going to, but I was too tired. I went to bed early. |
| Mari: Minä katsoin. Mutta kyllä minuakin nukutti. |
| Brandon: I watched it. But I was sleepy, too. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Brandon: There seems to have been an ice hockey match on TV the day before. |
| Nico: Yes. It seems to have been late at night, though. Maybe there was a big tournament going on in America. |
| Brandon: I know Finland is one of the top ice hockey countries. Is it very popular in Finland? |
| Nico: Oh yes. I don’t think it’s the most popular sport in terms of the number of people who play it, but it’s a very popular spectator sport as well. Of course, people also like it because the national team has been quite successful lately. |
| Brandon: [laughs] Sure, people like it when their team wins. I think the Finnish team won the world championships some time ago, didn’t they? |
| Nico: Yes. We have two world championship titles so far, and many second and third places. |
| Brandon: Wow, that’s really impressive. Okay, now let’s move on to the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Brandon: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| : The first word we shall see is: |
| Nico: eilen [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: yesterday |
| Nico: eilen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: eilen [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: jääkiekko [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: ice hockey |
| Nico: jääkiekko [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: jääkiekko [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: koko [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: entire, all |
| Nico: koko [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: koko [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: ilta [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: evening |
| Nico: ilta [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: ilta [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: kauhean [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: terribly |
| Nico: kauhean [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: kauhean [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: aikoa [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: to intend |
| Nico: aikoa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: aikoa [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: liian [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: too, excessively |
| Nico: liian [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: liian [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: aikaisin [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: early |
| Nico: aikaisin [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: aikaisin [natural native speed] |
| : Next: |
| Nico: mennä nukkumaan [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: to go to bed |
| Nico: mennä nukkumaan [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: mennä nukkumaan [natural native speed] |
| : And last: |
| Nico: nukuttaa [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: to make someone sleep; to feel sleepy |
| Nico: nukuttaa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nico: nukuttaa [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: The first word is koko. It means “entire”. It’s special because it never takes any case endings, even though it’s an adjective. |
| Brandon: Oh, I thought all adjectives took case endings. |
| Nico: Most do, but there are a few that don’t. In addition to koko, two other common non-inflecting adjectives are ensi, which means “the next”, and viime, which means “the previous”. |
| Brandon: You use it by putting it in front of a noun just like any adjective, but it doesn’t take case endings. |
| Nico: For example, if you need to use koko kirja “the entire book” in a sentence, you’d say koko kirjan in the genitive, koko kirjaa in the partitive, koko kirjassa in the inessive, and so on. |
| Brandon: Okay. What’s next? |
| Nico: The next word is kauhean, meaning “terribly”. |
| Brandon: Just like “terribly” in English, it can be used just for emphasis, even when there isn’t anything particularly terrible going on. What’s next? |
| Nico: The last word is nukuttaa. It often gets translated as “to feel sleepy” in English, but actually it’s a transitive verb, and it literally means “to make someone sleep”. |
| Brandon: Really? Which sentence in the dialogue had this? |
| Nico: Mari said Kyllä minuakin nukutti, meaning “I felt sleepy, too”. Minua is actually the object of the sentence, not the subject. The verb nukutti is in the third person singular form, and the subject is left out. |
| Brandon: So if you translated it literally, it would be something like “Something made me sleepy”? |
| Nico: That’s right. And you can use it in a sentence such as Eeva nukutti vauvaa, meaning “Eeva tried to make the baby sleep.” |
| Brandon Ok, now let’s move on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Nico: In this lesson, you’ll learn to talk about the past. |
| Brandon: That should be useful. I can’t wait to tell you everything I did yesterday. |
| Nico: [laughs] Well, that’s just what our topic is about. |
| Brandon: There are three past tenses in Finnish, and in this lesson, we’re going to learn the imperfect tense. The imperfect is used when you want to talk about what someone did or what happened. So it’s pretty much like the English imperfect tense, right? |
| Nico: That’s right. The imperfect has an -i- added between the verb stem and the personal ending. |
| Brandon: Oh, it’s “i” as in “imperfect”! |
| Nico: [laughs] That’s a good mnemonic! So, let’s take the verb katsoa, meaning “to look” or “to watch,” and go through all the persons, both in the present and imperfect tenses. |
| Brandon: Okay. What’s first? |
| Nico: katson |
| Brandon: “I watch” |
| Nico: katsoin |
| Brandon: “I watched” |
| Nico: katsot |
| Brandon: “you watch” |
| Nico: katsoit |
| Brandon: “you watched” |
| Nico: katsoo |
| Brandon: “he or she watches” |
| Nico: katsoi |
| Brandon: “he or she watched” |
| Nico: katsomme |
| Brandon: “we watch” |
| Nico: katsoimme |
| Brandon: “we watched” |
| Nico: katsotte |
| Brandon: “you all watch” |
| Nico: katsoitte |
| Brandon: “you all watched” |
| Nico: katsovat |
| Brandon: “they watch” |
| Nico: katsoivat |
| Brandon: “they watched”. |
| Nico: In many verbs, the last vowel of the stem may change or be dropped before the -i. For example, in the dialogue we had luin, meaning “I read”. The present tense form is luen, but the -e is dropped in front of the imperfect marker. |
| Brandon: Let’s take some sentences and change them from the present into the imperfect. How about “I will read two books”? |
| Nico: Sure. In the present tense, that’s Luen kaksi kirjaa, and in the imperfect it’s Luin kaksi kirjaa. |
| Brandon: How about “We’ll go to bed late”? |
| Nico: “Late” is myöhään, so that’ll be Menemme myöhään nukkumaan in the present, and Menimme myöhään nukkumaan in the imperfect. |
| Brandon: How about “The water is cold”? |
| Nico: Vesi on kylmää in the present, and Vesi oli kylmää in the imperfect. |
| Brandon: Hmm… How come on changed into oli? |
| Nico: Well, the verb olla, or “to be”, has irregular third persons in the present tense. The present tense forms are olen, olet, on, olemme, olette, and ovat. The first and second persons begin with ole-, but the third persons are on and ovat. |
| Brandon: I see. What about the imperfect forms? |
| Nico: In the imperfect, all forms are regular and begin with ol-, so we have olin, olit, oli, olimme, olitte, and olivat. |
| Brandon: OK. Listeners, now it’s your turn. Change the sentences we give into the imperative. The first sentence is “I went home”. |
| Nico: The present tense form is Menen kotiin. (slow) Menin kotiin. |
| Brandon: Now try “Maiju and Emmi saw Riikka”. |
| Nico: The present tense form is Maiju ja Emmi näkevät Riikan. (slow) Maiju ja Emmi näkivät Riikan. |
| Brandon: How did you do, listeners? We have more details in the lesson notes, so be sure to check them. |
| Nico: And tell us in the lesson comments what you did yesterday! |
| MARKETING PIECE |
| Brandon: Listeners, looking for a cheat sheet to memorizing Finnish vocabulary? |
| Nico: Have you checked out our Video Vocab series? |
| Brandon: These themed video lessons combine visual cues with the voices of native speakers. |
| Nico: Just another effective method of learning and retaining thousands of vocabulary words. |
| Brandon: Go to FinnishPod101.com... |
| Nico: ...click on the Video Lessons tab... |
| Brandon: ...and hit play! |
| Nico: It’s that easy. |
| Brandon: But don’t take our word for it. |
| Nico: Try it for yourself at FinnishPod101.com |
Outro |
| Brandon: And that’s all for this lesson. Thanks for listening everyone! Bye! |
| Nico: See you next time! Hei hei! |
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