# lempi- / suosikki-



## oloekis

Can I use both suosikkikirjailija and lempikirjailija to mean "favorite author"?

I want to say "onko hän sinun suosikkikirjailija/lempikirjailija (Is she your favorite author?)". But I am not sure if both words are correct, or either of them? Which one is more appropriate? 

I googled for suosikkikirjailija, and it seems to me the word means song writer or something and not "author"...Is that correct?


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## DrWatson

_Suosikkikirjailija _and _lempikirjailija _both mean 'favorite author'. I think _suosikki_- is more formal than _lempi_-. Your sentence is also correct in spoken language. In written Finnish you need the possessive suffix at the end: _Onko hän (sinun) suosikkikirjailija*si* ~ lempikirjailija*si*?_


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## oloekis

DrWatson said:


> In written Finnish you need the possessive suffix at the end: _Onko hän sinun suosikkikirjailija*si* ~ lempikirjailija*si*?_



In written Finnish, should there be always both "sinun" and "-si"? Is it not correct in written Finnish to just include either of them? I thought it is perfectly okay to include either of them, or both. Is "Onko hän suosikkikirjailijasi" or "Onko hän sinun suosikkikirjailija" somehow sloppy writing?


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## Armas

littlemonyou said:


> In written Finnish, should there be always both "sinun" and "-si"? Is it not correct in written Finnish to just include either of them? I thought it is perfectly okay to include either of them, or both. Is "Onko hän suosikkikirjailijasi" or "Onko hän sinun suosikkikirjailija" somehow sloppy writing?



In written Finnish there should always be -si, but sinun can be left out. The sentence marked with  is correct in spoken but not in written language.


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## DrWatson

In (correct) written language the possessive suffix is obligatory, but _sinun _can be left out. In spoken Finnish you can leave out the suffix and just use the personal pronoun.


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## fennofiili

DrWatson said:


> In writing the possessive suffix is obligatory, but _sinun _can be left out.



In writing that adheres to the norms of the literary language (_kirjakieli_), the suffix -_si _is indeed obligatory. In the same sense, the personal pronoun _sinun _*must *be omitted, e.g. _Kuka on suosikkikirjailijasi?,_ unless the person has special emphasis, as in the contrasting _Sinun suosikkikirjailijasi on Stephen King, minun suosikkikirjailijani taas on Stephen Hawking_.



> In spoken Finnish you would leave out the suffix and just use the personal pronoun



In many forms of spoken Finnish, especially including what we can call modern common spoken Finnish, largely reflecting this spoken language of the Helsinki metropolitan area. I think I (who have lived in that area over 40 years) would normally ask _Kuka on sun suosikkikirjailijas?_, using the common spoken form _sun _of _sinun _and the common abbreviated version -_s _of the -_si _suffix.


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## fennofiili

DrWatson said:


> _Suosikkikirjailija _and _lempikirjailija _both mean 'favorite author'. I think _suosikki_- is more formal than _lempi_-.



Yes, and _lempi_- is more affective. Originally _lempi _means mostly erotic love, but as a first part of a closed compound, it is more or less the same as _suosikki_. So both can be used, but there is a difference in tone. Perhaps I exaggerate this a bit if I say that _suosikkikirjailijani _is an author that I like to read, whereas _lempikirjailijani _is one whose books I read with passion.



> Your sentence is also correct in spoken language.


To me it looks like a mix of literary and spoken language. In formal writing (and all my writing tends to be fairly formal), I would write _Onko hän suosikkikirjailijasi_ ~ _lempikirjailijasi_? This is what I would use in a more or less formal conversation, too. In free dialog, I would probably say _Onks se sun suosikkikirjailijas _~ _lempikirjailijas_?


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## oloekis

Kiitos Fennofiili ja myös kaikkille.


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