# tapasin syödä



## akana

I recently stumbled on this interesting usage of tavata:

Tapasin syödä puuroa joka aamu, mutta nykyään ehdin syodä vain paahtoleipää.

I have never seen this usage in any dictionary except for wiktionary. Is this a common expression? Up until now, I had never seen a good translation for "I used to..."


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## 880320

akana said:


> I recently stumbled on this interesting usage of tavata:
> 
> Tapasin syödä puuroa joka aamu, mutta nykyään ehdin syodä vain paahtoleipää.
> 
> I have never seen this usage in any dictionary except for wiktionary. Is this a common expression? Up until now, I had never seen a good translation for "I used to..."


This is more or less a dialectal construction in my estimation, yet it appears to be relatively common as I see it occasionally used.
MMMThis is the construction I'm more used to:
MMM"Minulla oli tapana syödä puuroa joka aamu, mutta nykyään ehdin syödä vain paahtoleipää."

Of course, the construction "tapasin _+infinitive_" is shorter. It's also listed here: http://suomisanakirja.fi/englanti/tavata


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## Grumpy Old Man

880320 said:


> This is more or less a dialectal construction in my estimation, yet it appears to be relatively common as I see it occasionally used.


I see absolutely nothing dialectal in it. I find it a little more formal and literary than "oli tapana".

GOM


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## 880320

Grumpy Old Man said:


> I see absolutely nothing dialectal in it. I find it a little more formal and literary than "oli tapana".
> 
> GOM


Your observation is probably more correct; it's the form "(p)ruuk(k)asi tehdä" that is actually dialectal, while "tapasi tehdä" (which however is similar in construction as the former) can be regarded as a "standard" form, just like "oli tapana tehdä" is.


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