Typical sentence structures

In addition to the 3 basic sentence types there are other kind of typical structures in Finnish.

Necessive structure

Genitive + pitää/täytyy + verb

Meidän pitää mennä.: We must go.
Hänen pitää syödä lääkkeitä.: He must take medicine.
Sinun täytyy ymmärtää: You must understand.

Ability and permission

If there are 2 or more verbs, you conjuage the first verb and the rest are in infinitive. With verbs osata, voida, haluta, aikoa, luvata, sanoa, unohtaa you use 1st infinitive.

Noun + verb + 1st infinitive

Hän osaa laulaa.: He can sing.
Hän osaa puhua suomea.: He can speak Finnish.
Hän ei voi tulla.: He can't come.
Hän haluaa syödä jäätelöä.: He want's to eat ice cream.
Minä aion matkustaa Helsinkiin huomenna.: I'm going to travel to Helsinki tomorrow.

Third infinitive (ma-infinitive)

A typical use for 3rd infinitive is to tell what is happening, going to happen or just happened.

(Noun) + verb + 3rd infinitive

Kutsuin hänet syömään meille.: I invited him to eat at our place.
Olen kirjastossa lukemassa kirjaa.: I'm in the library reading a book.
Tulen pelaamasta jalkapalloa.: I come from playing football.

Instruments, tools and vehicles

Adessive case has many uses, and it corresponds to English prepositions like by, at or with.

Matkustan Turkuun junalla.: I travel to Turku by train.
Mies lyö naulaa vasaralla.: A man hits the nail with a hammer.
Suomen kieltä oppii opiskelemalla.: You learn Finnish by studying.

Temporal structure

Temporal structure is used to tell about two things happening simultaneously.

(Genitive) + 2nd infinitive

Hän lukee kirjaa syödessään.: He's reading a book while he's eating.
Käyttö kielletty junan liikkuessa.: Not allowed during running of the train.

However, you can substitute this structure with a sentence starting "kun" ("when"), and in colloquial speech it's much more common:

Hän lukee kirjaa, kun syö.: He's reading a book when he's eating.
Käyttö kielletty, kun juna liikkuu.: Not allowed, when the train is moving.

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