# mitä --- onkin, niin...



## fillertombay

Here is the sentence I found this structure in:



> Mitä vikoja minussa ihmisenä onkin, niin suuruudenhulluutta minussa ei ole ikinä ollut.



I really have problems understanding these phrases that use "kin" outside of the meaning of "too." The use of "niin" following it confuses me too. My best guess it that it says something along the lines of "By whatever fault I have as a human, I've never been a megalomaniac." Is this about right? Even if it is I don't really understand the structure too well, so I'd appreciate any explanation someone could give with some examples. I've always hoped that someday after studying this language for long enough that I'd be able to figure out just the right nuance to these uses of "kin" and condense them into just one meaning that works across all uses, but so far I can't!

Thanks for any help!


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## Grumpy Old Man

I think you have understood it correctly.  I say "I think" because I don't understand the "by" in your suggestion.  Anyway, this is another way to put it: _Whatever imperfections/faults I may have as a human, I have never suffered from megalomania. _Other similar examples:

_Miten vaikeata se onkin/lieneekin, hän oppii sen varmasti ennemmin tai myöhemmin._
However difficult it may be, he is bound to learn it in the end.

_Mitä hän sanookin, älä usko häntä!
_Whatever he says / may say, don't believe him!


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## fillertombay

Thanks for your help, GOM! 

What I meant with "by" was essentially just "because of" or "due to". I was going for a certain nuance by using "by", but it's pretty much the same thing.

So can I ask, if someone wants to say things like "However blah blah something is/Whatever blah blah does" would you always use this "(M word) ---- (verb)kin" structure, or are there other ways one could say the same thing? I can't help but feel like there's another way, but I'm really not sure. I might be thinking of the word "vaikka", but perhaps the phrasing becomes a bit different in translation with that word.


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## Grumpy Old Man

Language isn't math, so I can't say that a certain structure is always applicable!  My two examples in my previous post are rather formal Finnish. In spoken informal Finnish many people would say:

_Vaikka se olisi kuinka vaikeata, hän oppii sen... / Olkoon miten vaikeata vaan/tahansa, hän oppii sen...
Vaikka hän sanoisi mitä tahansa, älä usko häntä! / Sanoopa hän mitä tahansa/vaan, älä usko häntä!
_


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## fillertombay

That's a good way of putting it, I was just being hopeful that there wouldn't be anymore frustrating structures to worry about!

Thanks for the examples. It frustrates me that these structures like the informal ones you gave don't seem to be shown in any books on Finnish that I've read. They're rather important IMO, but don't even show up in the all comprehensive Fredrick Karlson Finnish grammar book most people use. I've been finding it hard to memorize other structures outside of that book due to the many variants that seem to exist, especially in informal speech.


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