Haluan lähettää kirjeen lentopostitse

Learn and discuss the Finnish language with Finn's and foreigners alike
Post Reply
Spencerville Slim
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:33 am

Haluan lähettää kirjeen lentopostitse

Post by Spencerville Slim » Wed Jun 08, 2016 5:56 am

Listening to an old Conversa-phone Finnish Language Course vinyl LP. In the seitsemäs oppitunti, our hero John Brown, amerikkalainen, wants to send a letter home and says - I think - "Haluan lähettää kirjeen lentopostitse." For the life of me, I can't figure out where that "tse" added on to "lentoposti" comes from. Is this an inflected form? I know that we usually say that there are fourteen or fifteen cases in Finnish, but that some obsolete cases survive in certain idiomatic expressions. Is this one of them? I think not, because lentoposti and even posti or mail service are historically recent innovations, so unlikely to have obsolete forms clinging to them. But then what is it? FINTWOL just says "ADV" - adverb. "I want to send it postily ?" That somehow doesn't seem very satisfactory. The booklet that goes with the record is missing, of course, but I doubt it would have explained this point.

Or am I just hearing it wrong and he's not saying "lentopostitse" at all? Maybe the record skips?

Great LP by the way. One of the last gifts my late brother gave me, picked up from a sale of discards at the Brantford Public Library. Lovely concept. Learn Finnish in twenty 3-minute lessons. Damn! Wish I'd thought of that 30 years ago! Already by the kolmas oppitunti, about 7 minutes in, our man John Brown - who speaks with beautiful clarity, by the way - is getting cranky and giving us North American tourists a bad name at the hotel, viz.: "Saanko polttaa tässä huoneessa?" "Onko teillä halvempaa huonetta. . . . pienempää. . . . suurempaa. . . . valoisempaa," and - my favourite - "Onko teillä huonetta mistä on parempi näköala?" Third lesson and we are already conquering the partitive comparative and semantic uses of the elatiivi - or is "mistä" here just a locative use? Yes, I suppose it is. Room from which there's a better view. Pretty locative.



Haluan lähettää kirjeen lentopostitse

Sponsor:

Finland Forum Ad-O-Matic
 

AldenG
Posts: 3353
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 3:11 am

Re: Haluan lähettää kirjeen lentopostitse

Post by AldenG » Wed Jun 08, 2016 7:37 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolative_case

Phone just about dead, but that has what you need.
As he persisted, I was obliged to tootle him gently at first and then, seeing no improvement, to trumpet him vigorously with my horn.

User avatar
Pursuivant
Posts: 15089
Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2004 11:51 am
Location: Bath & Wells

Re: Haluan lähettää kirjeen lentopostitse

Post by Pursuivant » Wed Jun 08, 2016 10:39 am

I think the English equivalent would be "I would send this via air mail". You use that form somewhat rarely, but it is used when something is conveyed by mode of something. Common forms you don't think of are "ylitse" and "alitse", also in common use say "puhelimitse", or "kirjeitse" for communication but for transport would be teitse, vesitse, maitse...
"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."

Jukka Aho
Posts: 5237
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2007 1:46 am
Location: Espoo, Finland

Re: Haluan lähettää kirjeen lentopostitse

Post by Jukka Aho » Sat Jun 18, 2016 8:55 pm

I’ve also heard sähköpostitse, meilitse (the same thing), and even irkitse (referring to IRC).
znark


Post Reply