# No



## Aurora Australis

I've been writing a novel which has a Finnish woman as a main character.  She only speaks several words of Finnish, but I want to make sure they're right.  So if somebody could translate the below, it would be cool.

"No."
[...]

Many thanks


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## Gavril

"no" in Finnish is a verb that conjugates according to the subject of the statement you are contradicting:

_En _= "no (I don't)"
_Et _= "no (you (singular) don't)"
_Ei =_ "no (he/she doesn't)"
_Emme _= "no (we don't)"
_Ette_ = "no (you (plural) don't)"
_Eivät _= "no (they don't)"

Choose whichever of these is appropriate to your context.
[...]


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## fennofiili

Gavril said:


> "no" in Finnish is a verb that conjugates according to the subject of the statement you are contradicting



Indeed. Being negative is complicated in Finnish.  [Commercial link removed by moderator as per Forum Rules#6]

However, an inflected form of the negation verb can be accompanied with the 3rd person singular form of that verb, “ei”, used in an adverb-like manner. In addition, the inflected form may be followed by an appropriate form of the main verb of the question. Thus, a question like “Tiedätkö ....” (Do you know...) can be answered negatively in several ways:
– En tiedä. (I do not know)
– En. [a shortened form of the above]
– Ei, en tiedä. (No, I do not know)
– Ei.

The last option is the least idiomatic, and I would not recommend it in a dialog, but it would still be understandable.
[...]


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## Aurora Australis

Wow, and they claim that English is the most difficult language.  So many "No's" to choose from, and they're not as complete as an English "No".
I think I'll bookmark this page, in case my character wants to say no again.


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