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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