Tytti’s Comments (group member since Jan 23, 2014)

Tytti’s comments from the Language & Grammar group.

Ruth wrote: "It comes from mishearing the contraction "I would've..." "

Yes, I know, but don't they teach writing and grammar in school? That would seem pretty basic stuff.

Cecily wrote: "Newengland wrote: "I'm not a fan of grammar check. I'm always telling myself it was made by some techie nerd, not an English prof. Techie nerds have little patience for subtleties of language..."

My pet peeve is Finnish and finish. They don't capitelize other verbs so why they can't notice that mistake.

And I do think it's weird if I can notice the wrong words but native speakers can't. For some reason I have noticed more people writing 'of' instead of 'have'. ("I would of done something...") Took me a while to realize what that meant.

Melinda wrote: "Ah, but "the plague" and "a plague" are different."

But we use other words if we have to differentiate them, not always.

Is it just coincidence that the "run aimlessly" and "jump aimlessly" both have an "ella" sort of ending?

Yes and no. 'Ajaa' and "ajella" (drive) and with some others too (sit, hold) and you might have to change the base a bit. But "kävellä" means just "walk" (but kulkea, kuljeskella means walk or "to move oneself", too).

Newengland wrote: "Another good thing about English -- it does not have feminine and masculine objects. Aye, Dios...."

Neither does Finnish. We don't have articles, either. Completely unnecessary things.

Melinda wrote: "The horse pulls example is fascinating. Complicated!"

Well, maybe for a English speaker, not for us.

Also the Wiki article mentioned two Finnish words for write and jump but there are more. Like:

juosta = run
juoksennella = run around aimlessly
and one can make a word like 'juoksahdella' = take short spurts while running around, or something like that

hyppiä and hypätä were already explained (both mean jumping) but you can also:

hypellä = jump around aimlessly
hypähdellä = jump around and maybe take some higher jumps while doing that

So Finnish is a very flexible language, you can change a word a bit and the meaning or the tone changes.

I don't think it's about the grammar... I think it's because the words are longer so it's easy to skip letters. Like it's easier to shout "Oota" than "Odota" ("Wait"). And then there is "Ootko" = "Are you" ("Oletko?") but "Ootatko" = "Will you wait" ("Odotatko?") and so on...

But there is one thing that is probably impossible to translate, at least to very many languages:

hevonen vetää = A horse pulls.
hevosmies vedättää = The horseman "makes" the horse pull.
kymppi vedätyttää = The foreman orders to horseman to make to horse pull.
ukkoherra vedätätyttää = The big boss demands that the foreman orders the horseman to make the horse pull.

This is a very rough translation because I don't know how say it otherwise. :D

Edit: Oh, it has found it's way to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untransl...

And about those blues, it seems that it is the same in Greek. That might have something to do with religion, then, too, because both Russians and Greeks are Orthodox and light blue is the colour of Virgin Mary... At least in Russia you see many houses painted in light blue, I think it has some protective meaning... Nope, I can't really remember exactly.

Oh and it's sort of expected that you don't speak grammatically correct Finnish.

Like:

"Mentiin", literally a passive form, 'was gone'(?). but usually means "we went" which would be "(me) menimme".

When talking about people, people generally refer them as "it". (But often to pets as she or he.): "Se sano" = "it say" but means "hän sanoi" = "s/he said".

Words are shortened and spoken together: "I have" = "minulla on" but when spoken "mull/on" that comes from "mulla on". Or "Sano(i)kse?" = "Did he(it) say?", literally "Sanoiko hän?"

Anyone who would speak Finnish like it is written would sound weird. Spoken Finnish OTOH is very difficult to write. (Or not really, people use it while chatting but it's still different, a mixture of written and spoken Finnish.) And not to make it too simple, people decline words a bit different in different dialects, there is still "a line" between eastern and western dialects. Many different words, too.

The best Finnish war novel The Unknown Soldier is notoriosly difficult to translate because it has several different dialects that also tell a lot about the characters because they come from different parts of the country and "their" people are usually different. But I have heard that not only there are parts taken from the English edition but also some added(!). I hope that it's not true.

Well Hungarian has 24, IIRC.

I don't know, probably not. Spoken Finnish in general is so different that you wouldn't notice those things.

Melinda wrote: "I think it's funny the way even names decline (change form according to case/function in sentence)."

Hmm... you are talking to a Finn, we have 15 cases, so I don't think it's that funny...
http://depressingfinland.tumblr.com/p...

Ruth wrote: "In some Slavic languages, there are two different words for blue, kind of like sky blue and dark blue."

Slavic languages, well at least Russian, are a bit different other ways, too.

Newengland wrote: "I'm thinking dyslexia. It's a spelling problem, kind of like Aaron had, no?"

Well that too, but it's actually a lot more because it also affects reading.

Mariab wrote: "Well, you guessed right; "money doesn´t buy happiness, but buys cocholate, which is pretty close". And the agents discovered only that I eat it all the time!
Mitts were not allowed because of envir..."

Being allergic to chocolate would have been the worst of those. And my parents were probably under surveillance once when visiting USSR so that's not really surprising either. Or the lava thing...

Newengland wrote: "Hi, Ami. My 8th graders are enamored with comma splices, too. Still, as you point out, many authors indulge as well. Yeah, yeah. They're supposedly breaking the rules because they know 'em. Still, ..."

I will be quilty of this because they are "mandatory" in Finnish. We were never actually taught the English punctuation in school. They just said it was so different and when in doubt leave it off.

And in Finnish we don't have "grammar freaks" but "comma f*uckers". (A direct translation, though I normally use "a comma filer".)

Swedes have started using "hen" instead of 'han' or 'hon'. I am not sure how common it is.

Heh, this is one problem that Finnish writers don't have... Gender-neutral language <3

Carol wrote: "So I think you went to England , saw QE and shook Clinton's hand because you are the spy. Lol! Welcome to this corner , Tytti."

Thanks, and you were close. It was my mom (and her family) who knew the spy, I didn't get the chance to meet him before his death. Kylmän sodan agentti: Kaukopartiojohtaja Lauri Solehmaisen elämäntarina this tells his life story (The agent of the cold war). He was one of the former reconnaissance soldiers who were asked and trained by NATO to cross the Soviet border and see what was happening there in the early 1950s.

Hello, I am from Finland so obviously English isn't my native language. I joined to see if I might learn something but probably won't post too much. Personally I can't understand the problems people have with their/there, your/you're or its/it's etc. I think most of us learned those during the first year we were studying English... I've studied four other languages but I am not so fluent with them.

But these are my two truths and a lie:
I have met a real life spy.
I have shaken hands with President Bill Clinton.
I have seen Queen Elizabeth II live.