Minuksi

[Jukka Aho]

Now I see what you were getting at. I can't say for sure whether you can get there with -ksi but at the very least you need a subject.

"Häneksi tuo oli tyhmää käyttäytymistä." ??

I can “get” the intended meaning from that expression but it’s not what one would normally say in Finnish. There’s a common way to express that idea in a similar fashion but it makes use of the ablative instead:

Häneltä tuo oli tyhmää käyttäytymistä.

(I.e. it was something that was neither expected nor appreciated when coming from him; a person like him; a person in his position. He should have known/thought better before acting.)

If I were going to attempt it that way, I would say Hän on hämmästyttävän epäkohtelias [ihminen] kanadalaiseksi or Hän käyttäytyi hämmästyttävän epäkohteliaasti kanadalaiseksi -- or more likely Hän on hämmästyttävän epäkohtelias ollakseen kanadalainen. But I can't definitely vouch for any of these.

My preferred choice would be the first one, without [ihminen] as it is not really required. None of them are wrong.

I put the [ihminen] there in brackets to emphasize that with or without it, you are talking about a person, so -ksi is [almost] translating noun-to-noun and not quality-to-noun. I guess that's also part of why I don't feel that meiksi works but possibly meikäläinen could. In the latter, the trasnlation you are making is 1-to-1, in the former 1-to-millions.

Hän on meikäläiseksi epäkohtelias.

Yeah, that’s OK. He’s rude in some out-of-the-norm way, considering he’s one of “us”; a member of “our group”. (Whatever that means in context.)

[vn]

Hey, guys! Kiitos for all the replies! (By the way, how would you say that suomeksi?)

As I thought, the translative case itself is used in a variety of ways, but not as often (or almost never) with the personal pronouns.

Kiitos again!

[AldenG]

Here's another couple of ways of using ollakseen to get around awkward grammatical incongruencies.

Tuo on aika kehno talo ollakseen Toivon työtä.
That's a pretty crummy house to be some of Toivo's work.

Tuo on aika kehno talo ollakseen Toivon rakentama. (or tekemä, more generally)
That's a pretty crummy house to be [of] Toivo's building/making (to be built by Toivo, an illustration of how the "object participle," properly called agent participle, doesn't care whether it represents present or past).

Of course you could still say Tuo on aika kehno Teuvon [rakentamaksi] taloksi. That's pretty crummy to be "Teuvo's [building/built] house."

But you're going to love this:

Mrs. AG just got back from work and I verified I could leave rakentama dangling at the end of the sentence like that with its object at the beginning, which I was mostly sure I could. She asked what it was all about and I relayed the sentence that started the train of thought (häneksi oli tyhmä käytös). Without batting an eyelash, she said, Hänen käytöksekseen tuo oli tyhmää, which is about as literally close to what you were trying to do in the first place as it is possible legally to get, I reckon, just moving the -ksi from him to the behavior. So you have käytös+ksi+nsa/an becoming käytöksekseen. "That was pretty dumb to become his behavior." Of course there's a point where we go to far to translate these endings quasi-literally. The main thing is to go back over the examples several times in the coming days just imagining what they mean without English words, so that the Finnish starts to mean (to you) what you use it for.

[Jukka Aho]

Hey, guys! Kiitos for all the replies! (By the way, how would you say that suomeksi?)

Kiitos kaikista vastauksista!

[Vellamo]

Good job, AldenG! And I also agree with what Jukka Aho said.

In Hänen käytöksekseen tuo oli tyhmä I'd add ä to the end. Hänen käytöksekseen tuo oli tyhmää. The sentence still sounds a bit awkward to me, though. Maybe it would appear less awkward in a correct context.

I don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but: Enpä olisi hänestä uskonut.

[AldenG]

In Hänen käytöksekseen tuo oli tyhmä I'd add ä to the end.

Thanks, I fixed it since I also had a confusing &-for-/ keyboard error in there.

[Jukka Aho]

Tuo on aika kehno talo ollakseen Toivon työtä.
That's a pretty crummy house to be some of Toivo's work.

The partitive does not really imply partialness here... it’s just an idiom/expression meaning “Toivo’s doing”; “Toivo’s handiwork”. You couldn’t use the infinitive because then it would literally mean “work, job”.

Näetkö tuon sotkun roskasäiliön ympärillä? Se on kaikki lintujen työtä!
“Do you see that mess around the trash bin? It’s all birds’ doing!”

Laiva on hyvää työtä (=tekoa); se kyllä kestää tämän myrskyn!
“The ship is of good work (=well made, sturdily built); she can ride this storm for sure!”

Olet tehnyt myyräntyötä!
“You have carried out some ‘mole’s doing’ (=sabotage)!” / “You have sabotaged things!”

[vn]

Hey, guys! Kiitos for all the replies! (By the way, how would you say that suomeksi?)

Kiitos kaikista vastauksista!

Kiitos paljon!!!

[Rob A.]

But you're going to love this:

Mrs. AG just got back from work and I verified I could leave rakentama dangling at the end of the sentence like that with its object at the beginning, which I was mostly sure I could. She asked what it was all about and I relayed the sentence that started the train of thought (häneksi oli tyhmä käytös). Without batting an eyelash, she said, Hänen käytöksekseen tuo oli tyhmää, which is about as literally close to what you were trying to do in the first place as it is possible legally to get, I reckon, just moving the -ksi from him to the behavior. So you have käytös+ksi+nsa/an becoming käytöksekseen. "That was pretty dumb to become his behavior." Of course there's a point where we go to far to translate these endings quasi-literally. The main thing is to go back over the examples several times in the coming days just imagining what they mean without English words, so that the Finnish starts to mean (to you) what you use it for.

Ahh, yes...the good old "acid test".... How does a native speaker react to the sentence!!.... They may not be able to precisely explain why a sentence or expression sounds right or why it may be confusing, but they know what "works"...

Of course, you have to assume a reasonable level of "literacy/fluency" in their own language, but that doesn't seem to be in short supply among Finns....

When I was trying to compose some of the personal pronoun translative examples above, I did think that it might be more logical to move the tranlative ending to the adjective/noun describing the person. [Also I missed a few partitive endings in my examples....trying to walk and chew gum at the same time, I guess...] So it does seem personal pronouns and translative endings are not a frequent feature of Finnish...???...

Nevertheless I'm still curious why you can't simply say...in some kind of meaningful context..... something like:

Minä tulin sinuksi. ...."I became you", can be said in English. Of course the sentence by itself is nonsense, but in context, it can be full of meaning. Such as this imaginary and insolent remark by a son to his father:

"When I was young I was idealistic, ambitious, optimistic.....then, at the age of forty, I became you."

So how would you say this suomeksi???

"Kun olin nouri, olin idealistinen, kunnianhimoinen, optimistinen....silloin neljäkymmentävuotiaaksi/-ana (...I'm not sure if this would be a translative ending or an essive) ..., minä tulin sinuksi."....

[Rob A.]

Tuo on aika kehno talo ollakseen Toivon työtä.
That's a pretty crummy house to be some of Toivo's work.

The partitive does not really imply partialness here... it’s just an idiom/expression meaning “Toivo’s doing”; “Toivo’s handiwork”. You couldn’t use the infinitive because then it would literally mean “work, job”.

Hmmm...I don't know if I can accept this without some protest.... Isn't there an implication, at least, that the "handiwork" has an ongoing sense to it??? That the "crumminess of the handiwork" is ongoing and doesn't really "complete"... Maybe even an implication that some sort of remedial action is likely??.... Or am I reading too much into this?....

....and thanks for the vocabulary enhancement...myyräntyö.... "mole's work"....

[David O.]

"Kun olin nouri, olin idealistinen, kunnianhimoinen, optimistinen....silloin neljäkymmentävuotiaaksi/-ana (...I'm not sure if this would be a translative ending or an essive) ..., minä tulin sinuksi."....

I think you're still fighting the problem that "tulin sinuksi" wants to be understood literally, whereas English "I became you" is readily interpreted figuratively. I'll take my own stab at that sentence:

Nuoruudessani olin idealistinen, kunnianhimoinen, optimistinen... sitten neljäkymmentävuotiaana tulin sinun kaltaiseksesi.

I expect native speakers can come up with something that sounds more idiomatically correct, but I'm pretty sure the grammar is right. Not "I became you", but "I became like you".

I did, however, find a beautiful Biblical example of the translative with personal pronouns: Hän tuli meiksi, että me Hänen armonsa kautta voisimme tulla Häneksi, Jumalan pojiksi. That sounds pretty awkward to me (I would have wanted "Hän tuli yhdeksi meistä"), but it's interesting nonetheless...

[Jukka Aho]

"When I was young I was idealistic, ambitious, optimistic.....then, at the age of forty, I became you."

So how would you say this suomeksi???

Kun olin nuori, olin idealistinen, kunnianhimoinen ja optimistinen. Mutta nelikymppisenä minusta tuli sinä. (I turned out to be “you”, developed into “you”, figuratively)

Or: Mutta nelikymppisenä minusta tuli sinunkaltaisesi. (“you-alike”; alike you)

Or: Mutta nelikymppisenä minusta tuli sellainen kuin sinä (olet).

You could also say neljänkymmenen vuoden iässä or neljänkymmenen vuoden ikään ehdittyäni. These sound more formal than nelikymppisenä, which is something you’d rather use in casual speech.

[Upphew]

Tuo on aika kehno talo ollakseen Toivon työtä.
That's a pretty crummy house to be some of Toivo's work.

The partitive does not really imply partialness here... it’s just an idiom/expression meaning “Toivo’s doing”; “Toivo’s handiwork”. You couldn’t use the infinitive because then it would literally mean “work, job”.

Hmmm...I don't know if I can accept this without some protest.... Isn't there an implication, at least, that the "handiwork" has an ongoing sense to it??? That the "crumminess of the handiwork" is ongoing and doesn't really "complete"... Maybe even an implication that some sort of remedial action is likely??.... Or am I reading too much into this?....

I kinda agree with Rob. The house is part of the work done in few decades that Toivo has been working.

"When I was young I was idealistic, ambitious, optimistic.....then, at the age of forty, I became you."

So how would you say this suomeksi???

Kun olin nuori, olin idealistinen, kunnianhimoinen ja optimistinen. Mutta nelikymppisenä minusta tuli sinä. (I turned out to be “you”, developed into “you”, figuratively).

That smells and tastes as translation from other language. I could see that used in translated text, but have a hard time imagining someone saying or spontaneously writing that.

[Tiwaz]

Mmm... Yes. Sinä would be better replaced with "kaltaisesi" (like you).
You just does not translate directly in this case.

[Jukka Aho]

I kinda agree with Rob. The house is part of the work done in few decades that Toivo has been working.

OK, that’s a good point and could be used as rationale for using the partitive.

"When I was young I was idealistic, ambitious, optimistic.....then, at the age of forty, I became you."

So how would you say this suomeksi???

Kun olin nuori, olin idealistinen, kunnianhimoinen ja optimistinen. Mutta nelikymppisenä minusta tuli sinä. (I turned out to be “you”, developed into “you”, figuratively).

That smells and tastes as translation from other language. I could see that used in translated text, but have a hard time imagining someone saying or spontaneously writing that.

I have no problem at all with minusta tuli sinä. It’s kind of a “strong” and “dramatic” metaphor – not to be thrown around too lightly – but it would work, given a suitable context. Maybe better suited for a poem or a line in song lyrics than “actual” usage? I do have a problem with kaltaisesi, though: it feels way too formal for a conversation. In casual speech, you’d probably say m(in)usta tuli niinku(in) s(in)ä. Or m(in)usta tuli samanlainen/sella(i)nen kuin s(in)ä, if you insist.