Learn how to ask the location
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| Jessi: Hello, and welcome to Finnish Survival Phrases, brought to you by FinnishPod101.com. This course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Finland. You'll be surprised at how far a little Finnish will go. Now, before we jump in, remember to stop by FinnishPod101.com and there you'll find the accompanying PDF and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment! |
| Finnish Survival Phrases lesson 29 - Where Can I Find This in Finland? |
| Reeta: Have you ever been in a city you don't know at all, and you are desperately looking for something you need and cannot find it? It has happened to me so many times! I wandered around without knowing where to go to find, for example, a bar, a phone, or a restroom! But don't worry! Thanks to our Survival Phrases, if you go to Finland you will always be able to ask for information and help. |
| In this lesson, we would like to introduce you to a phrase that will help you find what you're looking for. "Where can I find..." in Finnish is |
| Mistä voin löytää...-n? |
| After löytää, you add the name of the specific thing you are looking for, followed by -n. |
| In this sentence, you can use a basic structure in any situation in which you will need to get something. This structure is made up of the adverb mistä ("from where"), followed by the verb voin ("can"), and then the verb löytää ("to find"). After adding the place or thing you're looking for, you must put -n after the noun to make it accusative. |
| Now let's see what kinds of things you might need if you're traveling abroad. Let's imagine you're walking around in Helsinki, it's very warm, and you need to get something to drink. Let's go and ask where you can find a bar! "Where can I find a bar?" in Finnish is: |
| Mistä voin löytää baarin? |
| In Finnish, "bar" is baari. In this case, baari has the suffix -n to mark the accusative, and it becomes baarin. Let’s break it down, Mistä voin löytää baarin. Once more, Mistä voin löytää baarin. |
| With this form, you can go anywhere you need and ask for anything you are looking for. You could use another form if you wanted to be more polite and wanted to use a different expression. Let's imagine you are looking for a phone this time. "Excuse me, could you tell me where I can find a phone?" Anteeksi, voisitko sanoa mistä voin löytää puhelimen? |
| Don't you think this is more formal? Of course it is! So what do we have here? We have anteeksi ("excuse me"), then the construction voisitko sanoa, which means, "could you tell." There is really no reason to break this construction down any more; just remember that voisitko sanoa plus what you want to know is a polite way to ask for some information. After we have said Anteeksi, voisitko sanoa ("excuse me, could you tell me"), we have to add what we want to be told! In this case, we want to find a phone, which is mistä voin löytää puhelimen? Very similar to our previous sentence, this time the object is puhelin ("telephone"). Because it already ends in an -n, we add -men to the end instead. But don't worry too much about this yet—if you get the first part of the sentence right, you'll be fine. |
| Anteeksi, voisitko sanoa mistä voin löytää puhelimen? |
| To ask for any other item, we can just replace baarin or puhelimen with any other word and the phrase works brilliantly! Let's try it with "kiosk," which in Finnish is kioski. |
| "Excuse me, could you tell me where I can find a kiosk," in Finnish is Anteeksi, voisitko sanoa mistä voin löytää kioskin? |
| Ok, to close out today's lessons, we’d like you to practice what you have just learned. I’ll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you’re responsible for shouting it out loud. You’ll have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so Onnea! which means “Good luck!” in Finnish. |
| “Where can I find...?” - Mistä voin löytää ...-n? |
| “Where can I find a bar?” - Mistä voin löytää baarin? |
| “Excuse me, could you tell me where I can find a phone?” - Anteeksi, voisitko sanoa mistä voin löytää puhelimen? |
| “Excuse me, could you tell me where I can find a kiosk?” - Anteeksi, voisitko sanoa mistä voin löytää kioskin? |
| Jessi: Alright! That's going to do it for today. Remember to stop by FinnishPod101.com and pick up the accompanying PDF. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment! |
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