# muutama/muutamia & monta/monia



## plmk

How do I know whether to use _muutama_ in nominative singular or partitive plural. This question just occured to me, as I found the expression _muutamia vinkkejä_ in my textbook. I thought _muutama_ was always in nominative singular as in _muutama päivä_. Or is _muutama päivä_ just an exception?
And I have a similar question about _monta_ and _monia_. How do I know whether to use it in plural or singular, like in _monta kertaa_ or _monia kavereita_? I understand that there has to be agreement in number between the two words, but how can I predict if the noun is plural or singular? Why is _päivä_ in nominative singular and _kertaa_ in partitive singular, if we're talking about many/several i.e. multiple days/times. Are those exceptions or is there some rule explaining this?


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## plmk

I just found something like this in Wiktionary:

_In *written Finnish*, moni is the plural marker and the following noun (if any) and verb are in the singular.
_
_In *spoken Finnish* the plural form "monet" is used and the modified noun and the following verb are plural._


I'll assume this answers the question. As in _monia kavereita_ is the colloquial version of _monta ystävää_.

And on _muutama_ I fuond, two examples of use in Wikisanakirja:
_
Laitoin mukaasi muutaman omenan.
Muutamia pääskysiä on jo nähty._

I would understand if _omena_ and _pääskynen_ differed in countability. But they don't. Both are countable.


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## Gavril

Hi Plmk,

This thread (especially post #5 by Spongiformi) discusses some differences between moni/monet and muutama/muutamat. I'm sorry, I had meant to post a link to it earlier.


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## plmk

Oh, and it was exactly the same question. I guess I should become friends with the Wordreference search engine. Thank you for help.


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