a few questions about finnish words..=)

[AldenG]

OK I see =),sorry i didnt understand everything , but so it's very important to learn what cases go together with the verbs?
i dont know how i would do that hmm, i guess it comes quite naturally when i study sentences right?

Yes, you distilled the essence of it into those two sentences.

It's not entirely up to the verb. For instance:

Hän meni Kinnulaan. He went to Kinnula.
Hän meni Toholammille. He went to Toholampi.

It depends somewhat on the real-world and grammatical character of the noun.

But in a similar idea you use a different case just because the verb is different:

Hän kävi Kinnulassa. He visited Kinnula (and then returned or continued elsewhere).
Hän kävi Toholammilla. He visited Toholampi (etc.)

Hän kävi jossakin. He visited somewhere.
Hän kävi siellä. He visited there (that place you/someone just mentioned).

That difference between Kinnula/ssa/sta/aan and Toholammi/lla/lta/lle is the most common situation where the nature of the noun complicates what is otherwise a simple verb-requires-case rule. But you can solve that using more examples.

Hän kävi mökillä. He visited the cottage (and its environs, from Helsinki).
Hän nousi ja kävi mökissä. He (was sitting in the yard at a cottage and) rose and went into the cottage and came back out.

So you can think of it in terms of meaning or you can just learn the right reflexes. Nowadays I think the reflexes are better, but thinking about differences in meaning sometimes makes it easier to learn the reflexes.

I lean toward the idea of short sentences that illustrate one idea at a time until you get advanced. If you work on longer sentences, you need to pause when you're learning them, break them into pieces that emphasize the different concepts they illustrate, and focus on the concept for a bit. Otherwise you can reach a point where you're just memorizing sounds, and that's not necessarily helpful.

I also think it's important to frequently revisit earlier sample texts you have studied, thinking about the concepts they illustrate. There can be a tendency to just forge ahead, forge ahead, forge ahead in order to feel like you're making progress. But solidity of what you've studied is just as important as forward advancement. You don't just want to know the rules. You want to develop and reinforce the reflexes. You don't stop shooting baskets just because you hit three in a row. (I'm talking basketball here, not a pistol-firing range.)

As I was writing "forge ahead" three times above, because I type so much my fingers twice wrote "forget ahead" by reflex. And "forget ahead" is a pretty good characterization of what happens when you move forward too quickly without revisiting and consolidated what you've already studied.

[benjamiinn]

okay kiitos paljon =)))
and this book says too :

The -lla/llä ending is used for example with street names to say something or someone is in or on that street:

Asun Töölönkadulla. I live in Töölönkatu.

or in a square or market place :

Olin Kauppatorilla. I was at the Kauppatori market.

ill remember to look more at the verbs in the sentence, and if the action is long or short, that is good too , right?

[AldenG]

I don't know about the long and short. I can't sit here and say offhand it's definitely not true. You may have read something about long/short situations I'm not thinking about at the moment.

The point of my last mökki example was not long and short, though.

When the guy was in Helsinki and kävi mökillä, it was a property he was visiting, the property his cottage sits on. It also includes the yard, the dock, etc. So it's more figurative.

When he was sitting in the yard and kävi mökissä, he actually went into the interior of the cottage.

When action or focus is not literally on top of or inside a thing, in other words when you're speaking figuratively, there is a tendency for the usage to require the lla / lta / lle group. I'm not sure that's a useful rule because there are so many exceptions. But it can be a useful rationalization for explaining to yourself why a usage makes sense.

From Helsinki, he didn't literally go and sit on top of the cottage and then return. He just went to the vicinity and who knows what he did? Maybe he just wanted to check that he had locked the well-cover and he never even went into the house. So it's figurative.

From the yard, he did literally go into the structure, so it's ssa. I suppose that if we went up to the roof for a moment, you'd say, Hän kävi katolla (checking that the chimney cap was tight). In that case, he was literally on top of something. You wouldn't say "Hän kävi mokillä" there, partly because "käydä mökillä" has such a firmly established idiomatic meaning that would cause confusion. But you could say "Hän kävi mökin katolla."

The literal situations are always easier to deal with than the figurative ones. I think a lot of the complication comes from the need to disambiguate literal and figurative meanings. You would normally say something like, "Kissa istui auton päällä" -- the cat sat on top of the car. I'd be reluctant to say "Kissa istui autolla" and even more reluctant to say "Mies istui autolla" because someone might wonder if I really meant a guy was sitting on top of a car. When you make it "auton päällä" there's no ambiguity. And again, this is all logic. What's more important is custom, habit, convention. Usage has evolved in such a way that even if it wasn't strictly necessary (and I don't know if it's strictly necessary) people do use "auton päällä" because that's what everybody else uses. It's circular reasoning, but that's how language actually evolves. The difference between when you do or don't use päällä can always be justified but in truth it is all a matter of convention. People will use "päällä" with some particular nouns and not with others because that's the habit the Finnish people have developed for reasons of clarity, rhythm, rhyme, and pure coincidence.

But you need to keep an eye out for native speakers who come along and make corrections to my explanations. I have the advantage of an outsider's perspective, someone who has traveled and continues to travel the path of learning Finnish. They have the advantage of knowing what is actually correct -- and that's sort of the ultimate advantage, isn't it.

[AldenG]

You could also say "Hän kävi mökin sisällä" to disambiguate your meaning. But since ssa tends to be more literal in the first place, I don't think a native would normally bother to put it that way.

Just don't think the ssa / sta / een group is always literal. There is something like

Minä luotan siihen, että huomenna sataa lunta.
I'm relying on it, that tomorrow will fall snow. (X)
I'm counting on it to snow tomorrow.
I'm counting on snow tomorrow.

Minä luotan häneen.
I trust him.

luottaa = trust, rely, count on, some senses of depend on

[benjamiinn]

From Helsinki, he didn't literally go and sit on top of the cottage and then return. He just went to the vicinity and who knows what he did? Maybe he just wanted to check that he had locked the well-cover and he never even went into the house. So it's figurative.

From the yard, he did literally go into the structure, so it's ssa. I suppose that if we went up to the roof for a moment, you'd say, Hän kävi katolla (checking that the chimney cap was tight). In that case, he was literally on top of something. You wouldn't say "Hän kävi mokillä" there, partly because "käydä mökillä" has such a firmly established idiomatic meaning that would cause confusion. But you could say "Hän kävi mökin katolla."

I get it

The literal situations are always easier to deal with than the figurative ones. I think a lot of the complication comes from the need to disambiguate literal and figurative meanings. You would normally say something like, "Kisaa istui auton päällä" -- the cat sat on top of the car. I'd be reluctant to say "Kissa istui autolla" and even more reluctant to say "Mies istui autolla" because someone might wonder if I really meant a guy was sitting on top of a car. When you make it "auton päällä" there's no ambiguity.

ok kiitos, i didnt want to reply immediately cause i didnt understand it , but now i got it =), let's just see if i can apply this knowledge to sentences of my book myself, but if i spoke to some Fin in his yard and would tell him to climb up the roof of his cottage,and used the wrong case , he would understand me wouldnt he?:P, would make the situation even funnier i guess xD

[Jukka Aho]

You could also say "Hän kävi mökin sisällä" to disambiguate your meaning. But since ssa tends to be more literal in the first place, I don't think a native would normally bother to put it that way.

Then there’s the expert combination, hän kävi mökissä sisällä, just to confuse you all. :)

— Kun palasitte hakemaan terassille unohtunutta kassia, ette tietenkään muistaneet tarkistaa, tuliko kaasupullo varmasti laitettua kiinni?
— Kyllä se tarkistettiin; Matti kävi mökissä sisällä. Sinne oli myös unohtunut minun pyyhkeeni.

[benjamiinn]

Then there’s the expert combination, hän kävi mökissä sisällä, just to confuse you all.

, ok, so btw, is the verb *mennä* really wrongplaced here? instead of kävi ?or for what situation do you use mennä?

[Jukka Aho]

Then there’s the expert combination, hän kävi mökissä sisällä, just to confuse you all. :)

:P, ok, so btw, is the verb *mennä* really wrongplaced here? instead of kävi ?or for what situation do you use mennä?

AldenG actually explains their difference in this post. But to cut it short:

käydä = to (briefly) visit someplace, then return from there
käydä tekemässä = to go and do (something), then return from there (tehdä = to do something)
käydä katsomassa = to go and see/check (someone/something), then come back (katsoa = to [have a] look, to watch)

mennä = to go somewhere (with no indication you’re necessarily coming back)
mennä tekemään = to go and do something (tehdä = to do something)
mennä juoksemaan = to go running (juosta = to run)
mennä käymään = to go and visit someplace (although the length of the visit can vary, you would return after a while... be that minutes, hours, or a couple of days later)
etc.

[Pursuivant]

Käykö kellosi? Käske käymään meilläkin!

[benjamiinn]

ok thanks =)

[benjamiinn]

ok here are some more questions please ;

1.why do you say ne menevät kiini for they close?
can't one say ne _[fin.verb*to close*]_

cause you can say too ne aukeavat for they open,
and not ne menevät auki , or how is that?

and do avoinna & suljettu use the same rules?

2.can you say aamu too ,instead of huomenta?
since my dictionary says aamu means morning..

3.this book says: Missä sinä olet työssä?
but my friend says it's : Missä sinä olet töissä?
are both of them right?
työssä is singular , and töissä is plural someone told me?oO

4.same with yötä
my friend says öitä
why is that?

5.kysymys, kysymykset
what is the rule for adding that -set ending for plurals?

6.miten means how? , right?
miten menee? how are things going?
can I say too kuinka menee?

7.kiitos means thanks , but can it also mean please?
like when im buying something in a shop and say May I have ____, kiitos

8.whats the difference between sitä and se?

9.kansallisteatteri
kansallinen means national , right?
so why does it change to kansallIS?
10.Helsingin matkailutoimisto
I would understand matkatoimisto, so what is that ilu in between good for?

11.pääpostin ohi --- past the main post office
can I say too : pääpostin yli ?
or viisi ohi yksi ( talking about time)

12.se näkyy tänne
it [is visible] from here.
but tänne means *to here*?

heh thats it for now, would be nice if anyone could help =)

[Jukka Aho]

1.why do you say ne menevät kiini for they close?
can't one say ne _[fin.verb*to close*]_

You could say

ne sulkeutuvat

but

ne menevät kiinni

is just as good, and probably more common as well, at least in speech.

cause you can say too ne aukeavat for they open,
and not ne menevät auki , or how is that?

Yeah, ne menevät auki sounds a bit odd. The verb mennä isn’t usually used in those kind of contexts. (I guess the verb mennä generally implies that the subject has gone or is going to go away from your reach in some way – it is no longer “available” to you. Minä menen pois. Kaupat menevät kiinni. Juusto on mennyt homeeseen.)

and do avoinna & suljettu use the same rules?

Depends on what kind of “rules” you have in mind. :)

[Jukka Aho]

2.can you say aamu too ,instead of huomenta?
since my dictionary says aamu means morning..

Normally you wouldn’t use the word aamu as a greeting. (That said, sometimes people might do that jocularly: Aamua! But that isn’t a “standard” Finnish greeting... more like playing around with words.)

3.this book says: Missä sinä olet työssä?
but my friend says it's : Missä sinä olet töissä?
are both of them right?
työssä is singular , and töissä is plural someone told me?oO

That’s right. Töissä is the partitive plural of työ, and Missä sinä olet töissä? is the idiomatic way to ask someone about the company or organization they work for.

I don’t see

Missä sinä olet työssä?

as being “wrong” but

Missä sinä olet töissä?

is definitely the more common and more “standard” way to ask that question.

I guess the plurality (töissä) comes from that työ can also mean an individual, small, well-defined task with a beginning and an end. “Work” done for an employer usually consists of many kinds of different “tasks” in that sense: different projects come and go.

4.same with yötä
my friend says öitä
why is that?

Just an idiomatic expression, there’s probably no logic behind it.

These are all equivalent in their meaning even though the latter group uses plural forms:

Hyvää yötä!
Yötä!

Hyviä öitä!
Öitä!
Yöt!

(Perhaps you could “explain” the plural forms by assuming there’s a group of people present, and you want to wish “good night” to each of them individually: “‘Good nights’ to y’all... each of you separately and individually!” But in practice, the plural forms are often used even if you’re only addressing a single person.)

[benjamiinn]

ok =)

and do avoinna & suljettu use the same rules?

Depends on what kind of “rules” you have in mind.

oh yeah i mean like , i can replace auki by avoinna in any sentence?- ovi on avoinna/auki?:D

and kiinni by suljettu ,right?
ne menevät suljettu?

[benjamiinn]

ok i understand so far =)