# Lasten on vaikea



## 盲人瞎馬

> Yleensä* lasten *on vaikea kertoa kiusaamisesta aikuiselle, ja he pelkäävät, että kiusaaminen pahenee jos ”kantelee” opettajalle tai vanhemmille. ​



Why is lapsi in the genitive plural? Wouldn't lapsille be a better choice?


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## Gavril

Vitalore said:


> Why is lapsi in the genitive plural?



I think that the genitive in this type of sentence is analogous to the genitive in, e.g.,
_
Lasten pitäisi olla hiljaa. _"Children should be quiet."
_Lasten on nälkä. _"The children are hungry."

As I recall, constructions like the above developed because the case that's now the genitive (ending in _-n_) used to also have a dative meaning, similar to the meaning of the allative (_-lle_) in modern-day Finnish. So, _lasten _in the two sentences above, and your quoted sentence, would originally have meant "for (the) children" or similar.



> Wouldn't lapsille be a better choice?



It might be possible to use _lapsille_ as well, but I don't think it's as common as _lasten_, and the meaning may be slightly different.

Also, there are some cases where the use of _lapsille _in the meaning you're talking about would create ambiguity:

_Lapsille on vaikea opettaa hyvä käytös.
_
If you interpreted _lapsille on vaikea _as "It's difficult for children to ...", then the sentence would be saying that children have difficulty teaching good manners to other people. But, the much more natural/likely interpretation of this sentence is that it's difficult to teach good manners to children.


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## 盲人瞎馬

I don't get it. You're saying that there's a difference between "lasten on vaikea opettaa" and "lapsille on vaikea opettaa"?
Isn't "Yleensä lapsille on vaikea kertoa kiusaamisesta aikuiselle," translated as "It's hard for children to talk about bullying to an adult"?​


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## Gavril

Vitalore said:


> I don't get it. You're saying that there's a difference between "lasten on vaikea opettaa" and "lapsille on vaikea opettaa"?




Yes. _L__asten on vaikea opettaa _means "It's hard for children to teach", whereas I think _Lapsille on vaikea opettaa _normally means "It's hard to teach children".



> Isn't "Yleensä lapsille on vaikea kertoa kiusaamisesta aikuiselle," translated as "It's hard for children to talk about bullying to an adult"?​



Again, it might be possible to translate it this way, but I think this meaning would normally be expressed by saying _*Lasten* on vaikea kertoa kiusaamisesta aikuiselle.
_
Based on the limited reading I've done in Finnish, I have the sense that it's not very common to use "double" case forms (in this case, two words ending in _-lle_) within a single sentence, at least not when there's a less ambiguous alternative available.


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## sakvaka

Your suggestion would therefore be _Yleensä lapsille on vaikea kertoa kiusaamisesta aikuiselle._ That wording contains excessive tautology and can lead to some misunderstandings, since you cannot be sure exactly which noun, _lapsille_ or _aikuiselle_, describes the main verb.

_Lapsille on vaikea kertoa _means primarily "it's difficult to teach something to the childen". It *can* also mean _It's difficult for children to tell_, but this use is rarer, less clear, and your straightforward interpretation is probably influenced by the related structure (jonkin) kertominen on lapsille vaikeaa.

I don't know how grammatical it is to replace genitive with allative. At least the genitive is more Finnish, I'm sure about that.

Lasten on vaikea opettaa means "it's difficult for children to teach (something)" and the children are acting as teachers. A similar construction phraseologically would be _Minun on vaikea uskoa tätä._ "It's difficult for me to believe this."

_Vaikea_ is not the only word that can be used in this impersonal construction. _Helppohan sinun on sanoa! _It's easy for you to say so! _Hänen on turha odottaa yhtään kauemmin._ It's useless for him to wait any longer.

EDIT: Gavril was quicker!


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## 盲人瞎馬

Thanks, sakvaka.


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