# for two summers



## Setwale_Charm

Hei!!
If I want to say: "You will live there for two summers", which case shall I use for "summers"?
Shall I just say: _Elät siellä kaksi kesää?_


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## Grumpy Old Man

Correct! (I got a complaint about my one-word answer being too short! That's why I had to add this. I wonder why an answer must contain at least 10 characters?)

Correction: I began to doubt what you really mean by _live_ in this context. Two verbs are used in Finnish depending on the intended meaning. _Elät siellä kaksi kesää_ implies that the person in question will *die* after living for two summers. If you don't want to convey that meaninig, you should change the verb: _Asut siellä kaksi kesää._

Additional examples of the equivalents of _live_ in Finnish:
_Where does he live? = Missä hän asuu?_
_He lives in London. = Hän asuu Lontoossa._

_He lived to be 93 years old. = Hän eli 93-vuotiaaksi._


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## Setwale_Charm

Oh, OK, I see the point. Are they never interchangeable like in other languages?


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## Grumpy Old Man

Setwale_Charm said:


> Oh, OK, I see the point. Are they never interchangeable like in other languages?


Perhaps. I can't say offhand. There are so  many ways to say things! _Elää_ can be used in a sentence like this too:

_Hän elää/viettää maalla rauhallista elämää._ = _He leads a peaceful life in the countryside._

_Asuu_ is impossible in the sentence above because it is intransitive and thus can't take an object (elämää). The sentence also shows that death need not be in the speaker's mind when he uses _elää_. Here's another way to use _elää:_

_Hän elää vielä. = He is still alive._ (You could say: _Hän on vielä/yhä elossa_ in Finnish too.)

_Viettää_  could be used in your original sentence too:

_Hän viettää siellä kaksi kesää. = He'll spend two summers there._


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