# ite, itekin...



## Canadian Daisy

Hi, think they might be slang...? Can't seem to sort them out 

"ite" and "itekin"
"GB:lle"
"junppailee"
"aattelinkin"

Kiitos


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## dinji

Canadian Daisy said:


> Hi, think they might be slang...? Can't seem to sort them out
> 
> "ite" and "itekin"
> "GB:lle"
> "junppailee"
> "aattelinkin"
> 
> Kiitos


 
1) "Itse" 'self' and "itsekin" 'oneself/myself/yourself'
2) The initials of something or somebody in the allative case.
3) Should be "jumppailee" = approximately "voimistelee" althougn the latter is associated with traditional gymnastics, as in the Olympic Games, whereas "jumppa" could be aeorobics, spinning or whatever more modern.
4) "ajattelinkin" 'I just thought so"

1) and 4) are not precisley slang but colloquial discourse of genuin dialectal origin


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## Grumpy Old Man

dinji said:


> 2) The initials of something or somebody with illative case.


... in the allative case.


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## dinji

I believe you...


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## Canadian Daisy

Kiitos dinji 
...I'm confused by your last post - "I believe you...." Was this an alternate translation of one of the words or ???
(maybe I'm not so good at my first language either...LOL  )


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## Canadian Daisy

And somehow I've gotten myself more confused 

"ite" - is it slang to drop the "s" from "itse", or a typo?

"itsekin" - how do you tell the intended meaning, especially between "myself" or "yourself"?

The original sentance: "attelinkin itekin positiivisesti jättää kertomatta, että sama koskee myös hermoja"

My attempt at understanding: "I just thought to myself ??? concealed delivery, that the same also touches a nerve"

I had a hard time with the first part - and am not sure that kertomatta means concealed....

Kiitos


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## Grumpy Old Man

Hi CD

I hope you don't mind my answering. _Ite_ need not be a typo; it probably isn't. This short form of _itse_ is very common in colloquial informal Finnish. It is used by young and old alike and it would be an exaggeration to say that it is slang, even though it may be used in slang, too. It's ubiquitous.

_Itsekin_ is not informal or slang at all. It is made up of two parts: _itse + kin. Itse_ corresponds to all English reflexife pronouns: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves. In other words, you can say:

_Näin sen itse. = I saw it myself.
Hän näki sen itse. = He/She saw it himself/herself.
Näimme sen itse. = We saw it ourselves. _Etc.

The suffix _kin_ usually means "too", "also" or "even"_.
Näin sen itse*kin*. = I saw it myself too./ Even I saw it. _(Or: _Minä*kin* näin sen.)_


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## jonquiliser

Canadian Daisy said:


> Kiitos dinji
> ...I'm confused by your last post - "I believe you...." Was this an alternate translation of one of the words or ???
> (maybe I'm not so good at my first language either...LOL  )



Dinji just confused the names of two cases, and she referred to GOM's post when she said this .



Canadian Daisy said:


> "itsekin" - how do you tell the intended meaning, especially between "myself" or "yourself"?



There isn't any confusion as they're reflexive and refer to the subject of a phrase (e.g. itsekö ole*t* tehnyt sen?=did you do it yourself?)


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## dinji

Canadian Daisy said:


> "ite" - is it slang to drop the "s" from "itse", or a typo?


To explain a step further, this sound historically was something else, the word had an palatal affricate "_**ic´i*_" a bit like in english "_itchy_". Finnic does not preserve this sound at all and different Finnish dialects have different outcomes/representations for the sound in words where it once occured. These include common words like "_metsä_" 'forest', "_katso_" 'look/see", "_etsi_" 'look for, seek" etc.

The current standardisation of Finnish is a 19th century development and the spoken language still uses older dialectal forms.

Standard Finnish has taken up the forms _itse/itse-, katso/katso-, etsi/etsi-_

The spoken colloquial language frequently uses another variant, represented in many genuine dialects too: _itte/ite-, katto/kato-, etti/eti-. _Socially it does sound colloquial though, not archaic.


Canadian Daisy said:


> The original sentance: "aattelinkin itekin positiivisesti jättää kertomatta, että sama koskee myös hermoja"


'I just thought [also] myself in a positive manner to leave [the fact] untold, that the same also concerns the nerves'
"_kertomatta_" is a case form of a devarbal noun meaning 'not [to be] telling'. "_jättää_" means 'leave'


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## Canadian Daisy

Grumpy Old Man - thank you  The importance of placement in determining meaning in finnish is still not second nature to me. I love how logical and how efficient it is, but sometimes I feel like I'm not using enough words...lol Although they are longer...

jonquiliser - thank you, finnish advice and helping me keep track of the conversation 

Dinji - It's been hard to find finnish texts, and only one has any history about the language so I really liked the extra information, thank you 

I find that when I'm trying to write something in finnish it's not so hard to put the words together - I think because I already have the concept in my head and it's just a matter of building the words/sentances. Reading finnish takes me considerably longer. I will see a word I'm convinced I've never seen before and by the time I break it into it's stem and endings it's a word that I thought I was confortable with. Are there any hints or tricks to recognizing endings etc? Something even that small children are taught in Finland?


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## Grumpy Old Man

Canadian Daisy said:


> Are there any hints or tricks to recognizing endings etc? Something even that small children are taught in Finland?


I'm not an expert with regard to Finnish. A child learns their native language however complicated the grammar of that language may be. I had no idea Finnish grammar was complicated until I began to study foreign languages at age 11. (They now begin at age 9.) It all comes naturally to a child.

I suppose you could get a Finnish grammar  -  if you don't already possess one  -  and learn the most common inflected forms words can have. I can't envisage another way. However, I have been told by an expert that some words can have almost 500 different forms. I certainly can't list them all, and many of them are rarely used. This link takes you directly to an exposition of the grammatical cases of the Finnish language in a free online grammar of Finnish.


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