Shirerothisuomithreadi I: Help Scott learn Finnish

[Scott Alexander]

Täällä on linkki äitithreadille, Suomithreadi ApolytoninOn harvat säännöt threadiksi, joka kirjoittan englantissa siten voitte lukea ymmärtään seidät:Quote:1. No insulting my pathetic lack of Finnish speaking ability. This is my way to learn. Trial and error, with the emphasis on error. If I had any delusions about my skill in this area, I wouldn't have named the thread what I did. If you think I'm totally hopeless, which you probably will, kindly keep the opinion to yourself.2. If you have some time, look over my posts, post the correct way to write the sentence in Finnish, and, if you're feeling really nice, explain in English what I got wrong and why it should be the way it should be.3. No writing nonsense words so that I spend hours looking through my dictionary trying to figure out what they mean, not that any of you would try that *glares menacingly*.Nyt, herttuna Hyperborean, julistan tämä Shirerothisuomithreadi virallisesti auki! Edited by: Scott Siskind  at: 2/3/04 9:18 pm

[Tahmaseb]

Aloitan kääntämällä viralliset säännöt viralliselle kielelle:1. Pateettisia puutteitani suomen kielen taidoissani ei saa pilkata. Tämä on minun tapani oppia. Jos minulla olisi mitään harhaluuloja taidoistani tällä saralla, en olisi nimennyt tätä viestiketjua tällä tavalla. Jos pidätte minua täysin toivottomana, niin kuin varmaan pidättekin, pitäkää se ystävällisesti omana tietonanne.2. Jos teillä on aikaa, tarkastakaa viestini, postittakaa oikea suomenkielinen kirjoitusasu ja, jos tunnette itsenne oikein ystävällisiksi, selittäkää englanniksi missä menin vikaan ja miksi pitäisi sanoa niin kuin sanotaan.3. Ei saa kirjoittaa älyttömiä sanoja, jolloin joutuisin viettämään tunteja selaten sanakirjaani yrittäen ymmärtää niitten tarkoitusta. Ette te tietenkään yrittäisikään tehdä sellaista *tuijottaa uhkaavasti*.

[Ari Rahikkala]

And I'll start the nitpicking. Each explanation piece will be rated according to how important it is.Quote:Täällä on linkki äitithreadille, Suomithreadi ApolytoninI'd say that as "linkki emothreadiin, Apolytonin Suomithreadiin", and with very slightly worse style, "tässä on linkki emothreadiin, Apolytonin Suomithreadiin".Medium importance: Why "tässä" instead of "täällä"? I'm not quite sure, really, but anyway "täällä" means "somewhere around here" while "tässä" means "right here" in this case. After all, it makes sense for interior local cases to be more specific than exterior ones.Minor: Why "emo" instead of "äiti"? Emo is an archaic Finnish synonym for äiti and - I think - it's used mostly in composite words that mean something that is not human. For example, "emolevy" = motherboard, "emoalus" = mothership but "yksinhuoltajaäiti" = single mother.Medium: Why "-threadiin", not "-threadille"? You're linking to the specific thread itself, not to somewhere on top of it. Quote:On harvat säännöt threadiksi, joka kirjoittan englantissa siten voitte lukea ymmärtään seidät:I'd say that as: "Tässä vähän sääntöjä threadille. Kirjoitan ne englanniksi, jotta voitte ymmärtää ne."Major: Why "vähän sääntöjä" instead of "harvat säännöt"? The words "little" and "few" don't work the same way in Finnish as they do in English. "Vähän" is a nice little word that can be used for both singulars (for nouns that would be uncountable in English) and plurals: "Vähän kahvia" (a little coffee), "vähän sääntöjä" (a few/some rules), etc. A relatively rough scale of amounts from "none" to "too much" would go: "Ei yhtään", "vähän", "jonkin verran", "paljon", "liikaa". All of these words are used the same way, with a partitive. I'll ask some Finnish teacher what they're called...Major: Why "ne" instead of "seidät"? "Ne" is the plural of "se" and does not have a suffix in the accusative case. "Se" does, it becomes "sen". Getting pronouns right is rather important - it took me a while to parse this right (I thought you meant to write "heidät" but made a typo)Medium: Why "threadille" instead of "threadiksi"? Just think of "for the thread". I'm not sure if this can be considered a general rule, but usually "for something" is "jollekin" in Finnish.That's all I can say right now. There's more that I could try to describe but I have neither the time nor the knowledge for it... I spend my days enjoying the minty taste that surrounds Erik.

[Scott Alexander]

Kiitos Tahmasebin ja kiitos paljon Arin. Ari, tehditko mitään postina numero 666?

[Draco the Tainted]

pub9.ezboard.com/fshirero...=382.topic? Heil Loki!!!
Heil H'Graa!!!

[Tahmaseb]

Muuten, itse suomensin sanan "thread" sanalla viestiketju, joka lienee oikea suomenkielinen vastine. Eikö sitä olisi parempi käyttää kuin sanoa threadi, joka on iljettävä lainasana. Tietysti pääasia on, ettei käännä sitä langaksi...

[Ari Rahikkala]

Tahmaseb: Tuosta muistaakseni keskusteltiin Suomithreadilla pitkäänkin. Johtopäätös oli, että "threadi" kuulostaa kaikista vaihtoehdoista vähiten karmealta.Scott: Näyttää siltä, että olen kirjoittanut *kaksi* viestiä #666. Se, josta tein tarkoituksella erikoisen (valitsin otsikoksi "Post of the devil"), on Shirerothin virallisen uskonnon temppelissä.And as for that message... I would write it as "Ari, teitkö mitään postilla numero 666?"Medium importance: Why "teitkö" instead of "tehditkö"? Um... I don't really know. Perhaps there's a rule about it, perhaps this verb's conjugation is simply irregular. Tahmaseb might be able to explain this better. In the meantime, here's how that verb is conjugated in the present and imperfect tenses. Singulars are on the left, plurals on the right.teen, teemmeteet, teettetekee, tekevättehdääntein, teimmeteit, teitteteki, tekivättehtiinMedium: Why "postilla" instead of "postina"? Again this is one of those cases that might or might not have a rule behind them. Just remember that "postina" would mean "as a/the post". I spend my days enjoying the minty taste that surrounds Erik.

[Tahmaseb]

Yes, there are rules. I don't remember them, never have.Sanojen taivutukset ovat minulle mutu-tavaraa (mutu = musta tuntuu = I feel like)...

[Ari Rahikkala]

Tahmaseb: But that's what makes this fun, you know. We know the rules - but not in a form that we can express. However, we can study the rules... and it's a hell of a fast kind of studying because everything you need is right there in your own head! It's... research in bullet-time!* ari makes that "Come over here" gesture of Neo's, then notices he looks stupid... *Scott... I was just thinking, would you like to try some exercises? Something like, er, this (conjugate the verb):1. Erik ___ Shirerothin vuosia sitten - perustaa2. Hän ei ___ sen kestävän näin pitkään - odottaa... etc. Or, then again, this kind of exercise is rather complex - you need to figure out a lot of stuff from the Finnish sentence just to know which form to conjugate the verb to... maybe we should try something simpler first to identify where you're good at and where not? I spend my days enjoying the minty taste that surrounds Erik.

[Emir of Raspur]

This should serve as a reminder that I want Bahram to teach me Persian.

[For Her Light]

I was under the impression that a foreigner learning finnish is about as possible as a human learning to breath underwater And so we lay,We lay in the same grave,Our chemical wedding day...

[Scott Alexander]

Tahmaseb: Kylla, on verhe Stefun ja Apolytonerten, ei itse.Ari: Mitä PRHissa?! Kuinka maailmassa on sinulla KAKSI perkelepostiä?!Stjepan: Your knowledge of the situation is matched only by the aptness of your analogies.Harjoitusit:1. Erik perustai Shirerothin vuosia sitten (Erik founded Shireroth a few years ago) 2. Hän ei odottanyt sen kestävän näin pitkään (He did not expect it to last this long)I can't seem to translate Tahmaseb's last sentence starting with sanojen. Which reminds me...what does tacking -jen onto the end of a word mean?

[Tahmaseb]

Sanojen is the plural genetive of sana.Ja harjoitukset:1. Correct one is perusti. Pretty good however.2. odottanut. Just a slight spelling error. Very good!

[Tahmaseb]

I thought of another exercise: translate the following headline from last Tuesday's Helsingin Sanomat (the leading Finnish newspaper). This is a subject very dear to me Tutkimus: Viinalle persot elävät vanhemmiksi kuin raittiitThe third word particularly tests your dictionary

[Zirandorthel]

That crazy Tutkimus, what's he/she/they/it up to now? Sun Bless, Earth KeepZirandorthel I of TreesiaThe Golden DarknessNiirus Tinenetuwar, Tivitha e'Taras

[Tahmaseb]

It

[Scott Alexander]

How can I tell whether it should be a -nyt or a -nut? My resources gives both as possible forms of the negative past tense but doesn't specify when to use which. And on perustaa, why does the a drop away as opposed to something like sanoa where the o stays to make sanoi?Mmmm..as for the exercise, I really ought to be able to do this one since most of my practicing has been translating articles from that very newspaper. But I'm having a bit of trouble. My best stab in the dark would be something like "Study: More drunk people living with parents than sober people" but I skipped over a couple of words there so I suspect it's wrong.

[Tahmaseb]

The -nyt vs -nut thing is about vocal placing. If there are back vowels (a,o,u) in the word then the ending is with a back vowel (u). Front vowels (ä,ö,y) demand a front vowel in the ending.Dropping the both a's from perustaa has something to do with two same vowels ending the word. I think. Could be something other... In "sanoa" yes, the correct form is "sanoi" but in "liikuttaa" it's "liikutti". Something like that. Edited by: Tahmaseb Shah at: 2/6/04 1:54 pm

[Tahmaseb]

Oh yes, forgot the exercise. "Tutkimus: Viinalle persot elävät vanhemmiksi kuin raittiit" means "Study: People who like booze live longer than sober people".The difficult words are of course "perso" which is a bit unusual but means more or less liking something (not someone) very much. And the tricky one: vanhempi means both older and a parent. In this context it's older, or rather longer...

[For Her Light]

Can I change my analogy to a cat learning to breath underwater? that would probably be even more accurate ne razumijem smijesan finski jezik!!!11!1! And so we lay,We lay in the same grave,Our chemical wedding day...

[Tahmaseb]

Kak?

[For Her Light]

ne zai, kako ste? nevermind, continue with the teaching of the perkele-tongue And so we lay,We lay in the same grave,Our chemical wedding day...

[Ari Rahikkala]

I'll elaborate on what Tahmaseb said about vowel harmony. It's an important rule and you should learn it early...Basically, in Finnish, if a word is neither a compound nor a loan, it always follows the rule of vowel harmony. The only exception I know - and it's likely to be the only exception existing in modern Finnish - is "tällainen", which is really only a shortened form of a compound word.There are three groups of vowels in the Finnish language: Back vowels (a, o, u), front vowels (ä, ö, y) and neutral vowels (e, i). If a word has one back vowel, the rest of its vowels (including those in its postfixes) must be either back vowels or neutral vowels. If a word has one front vowel, the rest of its vowels must be either front vowels or neutral vowels. In case a word has only neutral vowels, its postfixes can have neutral or front vowels.For adding postfixes to compound words, use the vowels of the last part. For adding postfixes to loan words that have both back and front vowels, there's no rule. Using the last vowel is probably a safe bet, but nobody will really even notice whether you say, say, "analyysista" or "analyysistä". I spend my days enjoying the minty taste that surrounds Erik.

[Scott Alexander]

Kiitos, Ari. Opiskellin tuon, mutta unohtin. Tässä on käänosani tuoresta sanomalehtista.Quote:Afganistanissa oopiumin huippusato KABUL - Afganistanin oopiumintuotanto oli viime vuonna noin 3 600 tonnia ja ylitti kaikki aikaisemmat ennätykset. Kasvun odotetaan jatkuvan alkaneena vuonna maassa, jolla ei ole mitään muuta merkittävää Kaksi vuotta talibanien hallinnon kaatumisen jälkeen unikonviljely on levinnyt alueille, joissa sitä ei ennen ole ollut. Jopa seitsemän prosenttia afganistanilaisista saa elatuksensa oopiumista, joka on luonut eräänlaisen rinnakkaistalouden Afganistaniin. Afganistanin oopiumin arvoksi maailmanmarkkinoilla arvioidaan paljon yli 2 miljardia euroa, kun maan virallisen viennin arvo liikkuu kymmenissä miljoonissa euroissa.Tiedot kerrottiin YK:n huumeidentorjuntaviraston UNDOC:n kokoukselle, joka taas kerran yrittää keksiä vaihtoehtoisia elinkeinoja tuottoisalle oopiumin kaupalle.Kokous yrittää myös selvittää oopiumkaupan ja terrorismin rahoituksen kytkentöjä.In Afghanistan, Opium is Top CropKabul – Opium production in Afghanistan last year was about 3600 tons and exceeds all previous records. Growth in the country is expected to continue into the beginning of next year if nothing changes there..Two years after the Taliban government fell, poppy production is widening in the area, where it was not located before. Up to seven percent of Afghans may make a living in opium, which is produced by a certain kind of plant existing in Afghanistan.Opium in Afghanistan is of value in the world market of far over 2 billion Euros, with the country’s authorities exporting a value of twenty million Euros.These facts were discussed by the British narcotic prevention authority UNDOC at a conference, which once again is trying to invent an alternative source of livelihood to the lucrative opium trade.The meeting also tried to clear up the link between the opium trade and financing terrorism.Tahmaseb, mikä on tapahtunut välillä sinussa ja Majakassa?Ja nähtätteko, etta limoitut threadissa ovat saunaista!(is it correct to use elative when you mean “about”?)

[Tahmaseb]

Quote:Growth in the country is expected to continue into the beginning of next year if nothing changes there..Should be: Growth is expected to continue in the beginning of this year in the country which has nothing else of importance.Quote:Up to seven percent of Afghans may make a living in opium, which is produced by a certain kind of plant existing in Afghanistan.Should be: Up to seven percent of Afghans make a living in opium which has created a sort of parallel economy in Afghanistan.Quote:with the country’s authorities exporting a value of twenty million Euros.Rather: with the country's official export figures (of other stuff, not opium) is in tens of millions Euros.YK is UN, not UK. Otherwise, very good. But this Quote:Ja nähtätteko, etta limoitut threadissa ovat saunaista!didn't make any sense, I'm afraid. Niin, ja Majakan ja minun välillä ei ole mitään ihmeellistä. Se on vain, öööööööö..... (the concept of recwar really has no Finnish equivalent, maybe huumorisota or something)

[Ari Rahikkala]

Hupisota? I spend my days enjoying the minty taste that surrounds Erik.

[Tahmaseb]

On se ainakin parempi kuin virkistyssota.

[Scott Alexander]

The part that apparently was incomprehensible was supposed to say "And did you see that the advertisements in this thread are about saunas?" How should I have put that?

[Tahmaseb]

Oh ok. It's just that "limoitut" means "you are getting covered with slime" Correct translation: Ja näitkö, että tämän threadin ilmoitukset koskevat saunoja? Edited by: Tahmaseb Shah at: 2/10/04 10:38 pm

[Zirandorthel]

There's a single verb for getting covered with slime? Finnish has everything! Sun Bless, Earth KeepZirandorthel I of TreesiaThe Golden DarknessNiirus Tinenetuwar, Tivitha e'TarasGrand Duke of Lac Glacei