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Finnish Lesson #7 - Numbers

16.3.2010 0:01 Mary Nurminen

The Finnish lesson today has to do with numbers.At first it seems that numbers in Finnish are easy. You learn 1 to 10, how to chain numbers together to make a 'teen' words and then 20 and above. It's logical and straightforward. Easier than in many other languages. Yes!

For awhile you go along thinking numbers are your favorite thing in the whole language, until one fine day you discover the evil truth: numbers can have endings just like nouns in Finnish.

Sigh.

Not only that, with numbers you are even more unsure than with other words on when to use what ending. Ask someone how old they are and they might say: Olen kuusitoista. Or they might say Olen kuudentoista.

The difference? Something about the part they are leaving out and not saying (- vuotta vanha vs. - ikäinen) or, as my kids tell me, how old-fashioned the person is. But how are you supposed to know that?!?!

Adding to the fun, sometimes you add an ending only to the last number in a chain: Minulla on kaksisataa euroa. And sometimes you add an ending to every number in the chain: Hän ajoi kahtasataa.

One of my favorite number endings is the basic plural. You could go out shopping, come home, and say Ostin kahdet housut. which means you bought 2 pairs of pants.

Housut, you see, is always plural, even if it's really a singular thing. So if you want to make this plural thing, which is really a singular, into a plural, then you have to add the basic plural number to the word which is already in plural.

Illogically, you can also use the word yksi in the plural. If you want to take the same plural housut and tell someone that you only bought a singular pair of them, you would say Ostin yhdet housut. Which is the singular for a plural, I guess.

On the other hand, someone might say, Otettiin yhdet oluet eilen. Which makes me stop and ask - exactly how many people and how many beers were involved?

The answer: there were plural people and plural beers, but only a singular beer was drank by each of the plural people.

If you are still following this logic, you are doing better than I am.

The worst evil comes the first time you realize that, when you have a big ordinal number, you don't add the ending only on to the very last of the chain of numbers, you have to add it to every single number (or at least it seems to me that most people do that).

Case in point: If you have the number 1 693, it's easy enough to string all the numbers together to tuhatkuusisataayhdeksänkymmentäkolme. Long, but logical.

But if you want to say 'the 1 693rd time', then you would have to first plan and think through what you're going to say (for me that takes 5 minutes), and then say it: tuhanneskuudessadasyhdeksäskymmeneskolmas kerta.

Even worse, if you wanted to say "after the 1 693rd time", then, well, you should just give up. Last time I tried to say something like that I started out OK, but got lost very quickly: tuhannennenkuudennennennen... no wait! That went on too long…try again…kuudennensadanyhdeksännennennenne…dang! got stuck in that cycle again…kymmennennen…Oh hell, I think I need yhdet oluet...or wait, is it supposed to be kahdet?... I'm a singular person needing plural beers so…sigh…

VOCABULARY: Sigh: huokaus, Old-fashioned: vanhanaikainen, Plural: monikko, Singular: yksikkö

Mary Nurminen juhlii 20:ttä vuottaan Suomessa kirjoittamalla sarjaa suomalaisten perusolemuksesta.

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