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User talk:Hekaheka/Archive 2011 2014

-ki and -kki in Finnish
Jeraphine and me have been looking at the different suffixes in Estonian that have in the nominative singular. I found that the suffix with nominative -k (from -kku), genitive -ku (from -kun) and partitive -kut corresponds to the Finnish which seems to have the same meaning. But there is another form with a genitive -ki and partitive -kit, so I wonder if there is another suffix in Finnish and whether it means anything? And then there is a third suffix, genitive -gi and partitive -ki, where the gradation implies that the original consonant was k instead of kk. Does Finnish happen to have a suffix as well? —CodeCat 22:43, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * -kki is a deverbal suffix used to produce names of actions or objects of action. Examples:
 * > of a newspaper
 * > (animal)
 * The same ending appears also in names of flowers (leinikki, orvokki, hanhikki) and mostly female given names of both humans (Tuulikki, Annikki) and animals (Muurikki, Mansikki), but in these cases I would rather interpret it as an indicator of diminutive. -ki is not used as suffix in Finnish, AFAIK. --Hekaheka 00:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok thank you for explaining. Do -kko and -kki mean the same or is there still a difference? —CodeCat 01:15, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a difference. My first definition of -kki was a bit inexact. It should have read: "deverbal suffix used to produce names of results or objects of actions ". -kko is defined as "deverbal suffix forming nouns denoting activities ". Examples:
 * --Hekaheka 05:18, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, also the definition of -kko is inexact. A better formulation would be: "deverbal suffix forming nouns denoting activities or tools for an activity ". Examples:
 * --Hekaheka 05:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that there is at least one word that corresponds exactly: Finnish has where Estonian has, which seems like a perfect cognate of both the stem and the ending, and also with the same meaning. And there is also  which comes from , and Estonian has the same two words built from a different stem but with the same suffix:  comes from . But there is still one mystery... where do words like söök, jook and such come from, given that they also have gradation in the suffix, unlike the two others (at least in Estonian the -k- is constant)? Could you have a look at the Estonian definitions for  and see if you can find out anything? —CodeCat 13:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * --Hekaheka 05:18, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, also the definition of -kko is inexact. A better formulation would be: "deverbal suffix forming nouns denoting activities or tools for an activity ". Examples:
 * --Hekaheka 05:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that there is at least one word that corresponds exactly: Finnish has where Estonian has, which seems like a perfect cognate of both the stem and the ending, and also with the same meaning. And there is also  which comes from , and Estonian has the same two words built from a different stem but with the same suffix:  comes from . But there is still one mystery... where do words like söök, jook and such come from, given that they also have gradation in the suffix, unlike the two others (at least in Estonian the -k- is constant)? Could you have a look at the Estonian definitions for  and see if you can find out anything? —CodeCat 13:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * --Hekaheka 05:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that there is at least one word that corresponds exactly: Finnish has where Estonian has, which seems like a perfect cognate of both the stem and the ending, and also with the same meaning. And there is also  which comes from , and Estonian has the same two words built from a different stem but with the same suffix:  comes from . But there is still one mystery... where do words like söök, jook and such come from, given that they also have gradation in the suffix, unlike the two others (at least in Estonian the -k- is constant)? Could you have a look at the Estonian definitions for  and see if you can find out anything? —CodeCat 13:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that there is at least one word that corresponds exactly: Finnish has where Estonian has, which seems like a perfect cognate of both the stem and the ending, and also with the same meaning. And there is also  which comes from , and Estonian has the same two words built from a different stem but with the same suffix:  comes from . But there is still one mystery... where do words like söök, jook and such come from, given that they also have gradation in the suffix, unlike the two others (at least in Estonian the -k- is constant)? Could you have a look at the Estonian definitions for  and see if you can find out anything? —CodeCat 13:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an expert in Estonian, and to me the entry for "-k" looks good. But I don't really understand your question. What do you think is the strange part in jook and söök? To me it looks that they have been composed just as the others: drop "-ma" and replace with "-k". The letter "u" in "sõiduk" is required because "sõitk" would be difficult to pronounce. Or do you wonder why there are no Finnish equivalents to söök and jook? I don't think there should necessarily be one. The two languages have been developing on different paths for about one thousand years and during first 900 of them there was no media to keep them uniform. --Hekaheka 14:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Words like sõiduk show no gradation in the suffix, the genitive is sõiduki. But jook does show gradation, its genitive is joogi. So I wonder if this may have another etymology. On the other hand, the only words in -k(i) that show this kind of gradation are one-syllable words that end of a long vowel... —CodeCat 15:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing now, but it may depend on the fact that the stems of sööma and jooma end in a long vowel whereas the stem of sõitma ends in a consonant and the stem of ründama ends in a short vowel. In Finnish this type of things do have their effect in gradation and might as well have in Estonian. --Hekaheka 16:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh I didn't know that! Can you give an example of how it affects things in Finnish? —CodeCat 16:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't find any better explanation than that the words fall into different declension categories due to the length of the vowel preceding "-k". Eesti keele instituut has a database of Estonian words. I tried several words ending with "-k" and those with short vowel fell into declension type 2 and those with a long vowel fell into category 21. A correspondong phenomenon can be observed in Finnish nouns ending with. The words in which the vowel preceding "-ja" is a short "i" belong to the declension type "kulkija" and those with with any other vowel, short or long or a diphthong, belong to "koira". --Hekaheka 11:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Missing headword lines
A few of the entries you created recently have no headword line... —CodeCat 23:08, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, gotta be more careful. Did you fix them or are there any that I should take a look at? --Hekaheka 23:13, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I fixed two but there may be more. —CodeCat 23:22, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There shouldn't be many, they are completely unintentional mistakes. Usually they end up rather quickly in the category "Finnish terms needing attention", and then I fix them. --Hekaheka 23:41, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
 * KassadBot should be catching them, adding a basic headword line, and categorizing them in "Finnish [part of speech]s without inflection template", IIRC. —msh210℠ (talk) 00:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi,

Could you have a look, please? --Anatoli (обсудить) 08:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the fix! --Anatoli (обсудить) 10:44, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * No problem. I have one comment. In Finnish grammar se/ne is not considered a personal pronoun, but a demonstrative one. Obviously, if there's a uniform format for personal pronoun templates, there's a need to be flexible. BTW, how and where do you plan to use this template? --Hekaheka 10:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

 * se/ne is not unsimilar to other languages where I have added "it". Feel free to add a comment or remove altogether. This is your template now as you're the main Finnish editor. The template was done for completeness with other languages and I find it informative. Ric Laurent started doing templates for other languages and I joined the effort. You can ask him for possible applications he had in mind. The template can be added into the "see also" section at each pronoun entry, whatever. --Anatoli (обсудить) 11:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course (I mean the potential usage)! --Hekaheka 11:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

kun
Here under KUN, you gave an explanation of KUN as it was in those sentences that someone (not me) listed, but it needs adding to the definition of KUN. I would add add it myself but I don't know enough to know what part of speech that is (adverb, particle?) Also I went to that page because I came across this sentence in the paper today "ilman Saksan tukea EU:ssa kun ei tapahdu htikäs mitään". This seems like yet another meaning for KUN. My girlfriend says it just strengthens the meaning that nothing gets done but again I don't know how to add it to the definition... Is it possible you could update the definition for us? I bow to you superior knowledge of this wonderful language! 84.250.230.158 19:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Your girlfriend is right (they usually are). I'll add these senses one of these days, but I'm afraid I'll be busy doing other things for the next two weeks or so. --Hekaheka 15:04, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Yhde
For this word, sanakirja.org gives aggregate, train, set, unit, and assembly, and Google Translate, coupling, spigot, connection, nipple, and insertion fitting. Do any of these seem right? Suomisanakirja.fi gives "Yhdyskappale. Vimpain, jolla kaksi tai useampi kaapeli, letku, putki yms. yhdistetään toisiinsa." ~ heyzeuss 18:43, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Suomisanakirja seems to be closest. I like Google's translations, too, but sanakirja.org's translations appear to be too generalistic. Gotta study a little. --Hekaheka 15:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Sequence in Finnish etymologies
In, I have changed the order of the items in a Finnish etymology, using the order that is conventional in English dictionaries. I think that, because of being conventional in English dictionaries, this is the order that should be used in the etymologies of Finnish entries. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * All right, I'll follow that convention in the future. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Colon or apostrophe in Finnish grammar
Hi. Sometimes there's a ":" or "'" in Finnish grammar, like: "200:lla suomalaisella on todettu influenssa" (200 Finns have been diagnosed with influenza). Should there be explanations in our entries for ":" and "'"? Equinox ◑ 20:32, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I added a Finnish section to the entry for colon. The rule as to when to use it and when not is a bit complicated. Did I manage to write it clearly enough? The use of an apostrophe is considered incorrect, and therefore I did nothing to that entry. --Hekaheka (talk) 00:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * But please remember that Wiktionary is descriptive, so it would be nice if there were an entry to describe this usage. You could mark it as proscribed or nonstandard. —CodeCat 01:41, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

 * Going back three years: the colon entry has a sentence translated as "I bought Nokia's shares with € 10,000", which just doesn't sound very English. I assume it should be either "I paid € 10,000 for Nokia's shares" or "I bought € 10,000 of shares in Nokia". Second one? Equinox ◑ 04:56, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Would "I bought € 10,000 worth of Nokia's shares" be even better? --Hekaheka (talk) 08:37, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

 * Sounds fine. Equinox ◑ 09:15, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Numbered translation glosses
You may want to comment on Beer_parlour. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:41, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Efficiency
The adjective efficient is often translated as tehokas, which really means effective. For example, you could use the Finnish word (I assume) to describe a Chevrolet Corvette, which is powerful, but you could not use the English word because the car is not fuel efficient. The noun efficiency is paralleled in Finnish by hyötysuhde. If I want to use an adjective about the economic use of resources, can I use hyötysuhteellinen? ~ heyzeuss 11:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually the problem with tehokas is that it's an ambiguous word. It may be translated into English as "powerful", "efficient" or "effective" depending on context, and people often end up using the wrong one. Especially "efficient" and "effective" seem to be difficult for Finns. Examples:
 * Corvettessa on tehokas moottori.
 * Corvette has a powerful engine.
 * Anette on tehokas sihteeri. (She gets a lot done during a workday)
 * Anette is an efficient secretary.
 * Tähän sairauteen ei ole tehokasta hoitoa.
 * There's no effective cure for this disease.
 * One adjective for making economic use of resources is, but also tehokas may be used in contexts where it may not be easily misinterpreted. I have also seen in technical texts but hyötysuhteellinen does not work. If anything, it would mean "having an efficiency", but it would not reveal whether its high or low. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:22, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Saint Helier
It is independent enough for our purposes, isn't it? It has its own government and currency. Wikipedia article states that it's not part of the EU, while of course the UK is. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Depends where one wants to draw the line. Wikipedia says that it's a British Crown Dependency and self-governing parliamentary democracy. The currency is pound sterling (GBP). To me this doesn't sound like a country. I think there should be a separate category for capitals of lesser regions, such as capitals of provinces of Canada, states of the US, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Malaysia etc., comunidades autonomas of Spain, various republics of Russia and the multitude of other more or less autonomous plots of land around the World. --Hekaheka (talk) 19:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * One criterion for a country might be that it should have an embassy somewhere. I couldn't find any for Jersey. --Hekaheka (talk) 19:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The channel islands are similar legally to the Dutch constituent countries of the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten. They are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but not of the Netherlands itself (which consists of the European Netherlands, Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius). So, whatever applies to the channel islands also ought to apply to them. 19:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

parrot
Please do not add incorrect taxonomic information to entries. The parrots are not limited to the family Psittacidae, but include at least two two groups within the order Psittaciformes. Taxonomic information from older dictionaries (even 20 years old) is usually outdated. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it seems that I had an outdated source which included the genera Nestor, Strigops, Probosciger, Callocephalon, Nymphicus, Calyptorhynchus, Eolophus, Lophochroa and Cacatua in Psittacidae. But is it a good solution to omit taxonomic information alltogether? Including some taxonomic explanation seems to be more or less standard in our entries for names of animals. --Hekaheka (talk) 03:26, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * But not when that information is wrong. Yes, all Psittacidae are parrots, but there are also many other parrots that do not belong to Psittacidae.  It is better to link to a Wikipedia article for taxonomic information, as the editors there keep the taxonomy current. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:42, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't get me wrong. I wasn't arguing for keeping the word "Psittacidae", and I humbly apologize for my mistake. I was arguing for having some taxonomic information in the entries for common names of animals, in this case e.g. using the term Psittacidae "Psittaciformes" . There just might be other colourful birds that are able to mimic human speech. In fact, I remember having seen one in a zoo somewhere, but I do not remember which species it was. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:49, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Would you define birds as "chickens"? Certainly not, because chickens are just one subgroup of the birds.  Likewise, Psittacidae is just one group of parrots.

 * There is no taxonomic group equivalent to parrots, because parrots are not a taxonomic group. Many common grouping words for organisms have no modern taxonomic equivalent, such as "marine mammal", "bug", and "mushroom". --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:40, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * At least according to Wikipedia the "parrots, also known as psittacines are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes". That, to me, looks like a taxonomic grouping.--Hekaheka (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

gay
You will need to re-add the Finnish translations. The regrouping you did also grouped items that have nothing to do with sexual orientation. Please do not regroup senses for English entries, as your knowledge of English does not seem adequate to distinguish different senses. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:39, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

 * I've re-added the Finnish translations for you, Heka (I recovered them from the past version). I think your edit was OK... not ideal, and I do prefer the current grouping, but then, of course I do — I'm the one who grouped it that way. My reason for excluding the pejorative subsenses from the "homosexual" grouping is that, as EP notes, they represent a distinct sense... and I excluded the "gay bar" sense from the group, because one can't easily substitute "homosexual" there, as one can with the grouped senses. - -sche (discuss) 01:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I do not accept EP's insult. The sense #4 only reads "homosexual" and there are two subsenses to it referring to the quality of being homosexual. Sense #5 refers to the quality of being intended for homosexuals. Whether all three subsenses can or cannot be grouped under the headword "homosexual" is a matter of preference, not a matter of understanding English. For most other adjectives, we do not differentiate the senses with the pedanticism applied in "gay". Let's take "Chinese" as an example. Following the logic of of the entry "gay" we would need different senses for "Chinese" to reflect Chineseness in "Chinese woman" and "Chinese cuisine". I also refuse to apologize for the second grouping. Effeminate behaviour and uncool games are called "gay" because the speaker wants to hint that they are not suitable for "real" men, only for homosexuals. They fit perfectly under a main sense formulated as "in accordance with stereotypes of homosexual people". --Hekaheka (talk) 04:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no stereotype that homosexuals are "stupid". Does that help you see some of where you went wrong?  This isn't the first time you've tried to consolidate unrelated senses. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Anyone who makes 60.000+ edits is bound to commit an error or two somewhere. Are you saying that the overall quality of my work is bad? --Hekaheka (talk) 15:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

ajautuma
Frous tagged this verb form for speedy deletion (and Mg converted that tag into an unlisted RFV), saying that it didn't exist. All the other participles he tagged got no Google Books or Groups hits (including, oddly, the one Mg said on Frous' talk page got six hits), but this one does get a couple. I don't speak Finnish, though. Can you tell if it's a valid verb form, or if these books are using a different word? - -sche (discuss) 03:39, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * 1977, in the Publications of the Forest Research Institute in Finland (published by the Metsäntutkimuslaitos), page 48 :
 * Levityskaistan ajautuma oli kuitenkin selvästi pienempi kuin jauhemaisella lannoitteella, sillä 15 metrin
 * 1947, in the Suomen hyönteistieteellinen aikakauskirja: Annales entomologici fennici, volumes 13-14, page 40 :
 * Lisäksi hän on todennut että useimpia hyönteis-ajautumatapauksia on edeltänyt ns. ilmarintaman kulku ajautuma-alueen
 * Nice work! Frous is right in the sense that intransitive verbs do not have agent participle, i.e. the verb form cannot be used attributively the way agent participle is normally used, e.g. isäni ajama auto = the car driven by my father. But, -ma can also be used as suffix to create nouns. Some common examples are listed in the entry for . Ajautuma is a rarely used derivative and my first reaction would also have been that it does not exist, since I don't think I have ever heard it. Your examples show that it is indeed used as a noun in scientific context. I think "drift" would be the correct translation.
 * The first example is about spreading forest fertilizer from an airplane and drifting of the material with the wind:
 * However, the drift of the spreading strip was clearly less than with a pulverized fertilizer. When the plane was flying at 15 meters...
 * The second is about insects drifting with winds from one geographical area to another:
 * In addition, he has noted that most cases of insect drift have been preceded by movement of a s.c. air front over the drift area...
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 05:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Neat! Thanks for sorting it out. :) - -sche (discuss) 09:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I went to a fight, and a hockey match broke out.
Is there a Finnish equivalent? -HZ

 * Good game, by the way. :) ~ heyzeuss 19:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, there's no Finnish equivalent. Btw, what does it mean? I was expecting a tough sitution, but it was much worse? --Hekaheka (talk) 22:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Dunno who posted this originally, but the closest British equivalent is I went to a fight and a rugby match broke out. It really just reflects how violent rugby is (less violent than hockey or American football, but without all the protection). Mglovesfun (talk) 23:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not a metaphor. It's just a convolution of "I went to a hockey match, and a fight broke out," implying that ice hockey is more about the fights than the game. It's kind of like when people go to watch motorsports, hoping to see a crash. The incidental exciting parts become the main focus. ~ heyzeuss 19:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

 * Is it correct to say, "Kävin katsomassa jääkiekkopeliä, ja tappelu puhkesi." ~ heyzeuss 19:56, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is grammatically correct, but in real usage one would probably want to add the word siellä: "Kävin katsomassa jääkiekkopeliä, ja siellä puhkesi tappelu.". --Hekaheka (talk) 03:33, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

rötös
An anonymous user added that. Could you verify that it's Finnish and clean it up please? 12:14, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. It was this anon's sole contribution so far. --Hekaheka (talk) 12:31, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! 12:46, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Joutilaisuus
Does joutilaisuus translate as inactivity? ~ heyzeuss 09:28, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is the state of being . Thus it would be idleness in English. I'm not sure how much difference there is. I understand the difference so that an "idle" person is not serving any "useful" or "productive" purpose, but may be active in something considered unproductive (e.g. having a good time) or counterproductive (such as crime), whereas an inactive person is not doing anything. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:47, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * A citation from a blog by Karen Morton : I use my idle moments to think through blog & article ideas. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:35, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Lumia
How does the name Lumia decline, as in the Nokia Lumia 900. Can I say "Tahdotko Lumian?" ~ heyzeuss 13:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can. --Hekaheka (talk) 13:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

One more point: if you use Lumia yhdeksänsataa (Lumia 900), only is inflected.
 * Tahdotko Lumia yhdeksänsadan?

Further, in speech yhdeksänsataa would probably be replaced with more colloquial ysisatanen:
 * Tahdotko Lumia ysisatasen?

--Hekaheka (talk) 09:50, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Hiya
Nice to see you still working here :) Still finding new Finnish words to add to the English Wiktionary?  :)  Anyways, let me know how things have been going! Razorflame 02:22, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Finding new words is absolutely no problem. We have some 60,000 Finnish gloss definitions and there are at least 100,000 to go in Wiktionary's Finnish Index alone. If they run out one day (with current rate in 40 years) one can start with the Finnish form-of entries in a big way. As to how things have been going, I would say it's been business as usual. I keep working at the pace of 1,000 edits or so a month. July will be quiet as I will sail around the Baltic Sea. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:15, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

okariinansoittaja
Can you tell me what the direct translation of this Finnish word is please?

Thanks, Razorfl<b style="color:#003">am</b><b style="color:#000">e</b> 08:21, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It is +, thus I would guess ocarinist is correct. --Hekaheka (talk) 09:22, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. That's what I thought it was.  Thanks again, <b style="color:#00C">Raz</b><b style="color:#009">or</b><b style="color:#006">fl</b><b style="color:#003">am</b><b style="color:#000">e</b> 10:16, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

tumaton
Hi there Hekaheka :) I've got another request for you.  Could you possibly create tumaton here?  Thanks, <b style="color:#00C">Raz</b><b style="color:#009">or</b><b style="color:#006">fl</b><b style="color:#003">am</b><b style="color:#000">e</b> 06:13, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Direct objects, conditional verbs, passive verbs
I'm still not sure about how the passive and conditional moods affect the direct object. See also Iso suomen kielioppi. I think that:
 * Passive/imersonal verbs make the direct object
 * Nominal where it would normally be accusative
 * Partitive plural where it would normally be accusative plural
 * Conditional verbs have no special effect on the direct object.

For example:

Passive/impersonal, countable:

Also the word order has significance. Meksikossa pidetään jalkapallopeli means "A soccer match is played in Mexico". By changing the order of words to Jalkapallopeli pidetään Meksikossa it becomes "The soccer match is played in Mexico". One might also say Jalkapallopelit pidetään Meksikossa meaning "The soccer matches are played in Mexico".

Passive/impersonal, uncountable:

Also here, if you would want to say that a certain cup of coffee is going to be drunk in Mexico, you could say "Kahvi juodaan Meksikossa."

Passive/Impersonal, countable, and with a partitive verb

Correct, rakastaa is always with partitive, except in participle constructions, e.g. Minun rakastamani ruoka.

Conditional:

What corrections can you provide? ~ heyzeuss 05:52, 23 June 2012 (UTC) Thank you for the feedback. Great sailing, by the way! :) ~ heyzeuss 00:05, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

batten down the hatches
I put the literal sense, generalized, into an Etymology section. For the nautical sense, this is not the lemma and, further, batten or batten down combine freely. This makes your translation of the former nautical sense unnecessary, though some of it may belong at batten down. Does the result seem OK to you?

BTW, I am not 100% sure that batten down would meet reasonable requirements to be a phrasal verb. Only WordNet and its followers have it. We probably don't have an adverb or particle sense for down that is consistent with the SoP analysis, though. DCDuring TALK 16:13, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The result looks great, thanks for checking. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:00, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Finnish declensions
Can you join the conversation at User_talk:Sentree and check the recent Finnish edits of the user? --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:16, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Hesi
Hello you. I saw Hesi in the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, and someone told me that it's a nickname for that paper. Is it CFI-attestable, do you think? (Compare Grauniad in English.) Equinox ◑ 20:58, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Never heard that nickname. In speech Helsingin Sanomat is usually called Hesari. When referred to in printed news the name is abbreviated as HeSa or HS. All three are attestable, I would say. Hesari is so common that the newspaper advertises itself with the slogan Tilaa Hesari ("subscribe Helsingin Sanomat"). --Hekaheka (talk) 22:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe I saw Hesari and remembered it incorrectly. Could you create the entry, please? I'm still far off creating any Finnish entries I'd like to, because I'm lazy and the inflections are tricky <tt>:)</tt> Equinox ◑ 22:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. How was sailing? I was around Helsinki for 2 weeks (and some other places... Porvoo, Pääkslahti). I was going to row a boat but it rained too much at the time. Not unlike England, heh. Equinox ◑ 23:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There was all kinds of weather from total calm and thick fog to gale winds and thunderstorm, but also lots of sunshine and fresh breeze. I spent four weeks on the Baltic Sea visiting e.g. Copenhagen, Klaipeda and Tallinn plus the islands of Gotland, Öland, Bornholm and Saaremaa - a really nice vacation. --Hekaheka (talk) 23:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Another one is Hese for . Equinox ◑ 20:09, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

What is kakaaugusööja?
Hi,

Is kakaaugusööja Finnish? This IP use Special:Contributions/82.131.86.213--Hekaheka (talk) 08:12, 17 August 2012 (UTC)--Hekaheka (talk) 08:12, 17 August 2012 (UTC) added a "Russian" translation to sycophant. I moved it to Finnish but I'm not sure. --Anatoli (обсудить) 00:49, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Certainly not Finnish, might be Estonian, as sööja is "eater". i would ttbc it as potentially Estonian. --Hekaheka (talk) 08:12, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I tried to google kakaaugusööja and found only dictionary hits, which may be descendants of this Wiktionary entry. I also found that the verbatim translation of this term is "asshole eater" (kaka.augu.sööja), which is plausible. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

pissaliisa
Hi. I've nominated this to be the Foreign Word of the Day, but it needs at least one citation and pronunciation (either IPA or an audio file, preferably both) to qualify. Can you please add those? Thanks --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:37, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Instead of citations it has references to two articles which explore the topic. I added IPA and synonyms, and edited etymology. Is it now good enough for FWOTD? --Hekaheka (talk) 20:58, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks! It still needs at least one citation, translated below the quote itself. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There's one problem: how would you translate pissaliisa into English? --Hekaheka (talk) 04:02, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You can just put pissaliisa in the translation for the quote, unless a specific English locution seems to fit really well in the context. Thanks! --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:10, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

patroller
Hi! It's been suggested at WT:WL that we give you patroller buttons. I see you've turned down adminship before because you feel like you can do everything you want to do already and don't want to take on admin responsibilities. Being a patroller wouldn't require you to do anything new: but it would let you press a blue button to mark edits (such as to Finnish entries) as "patrolled" if you looked at them and they were OK. That way, the rest of us would know the edits were OK. You wouldn't have to go out of your way to look at changes to entries, but you could press the button as you went about your usual Wiktionary-ing. - -sche (discuss) 00:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * We also usually set "rollbacker" at the same time as "patroller". "Rollbacker" allows for one-click reverting of the latest contributions to a page. (See Help:Reverting.) —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 01:49, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Since everyone seems to agree, and you haven't objected, I've taken the liberty of empriving you. If you do object, just speak up, and I (or another admin) will undo it. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 00:33, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * OK. It's good to feel appreciated. Thank you for that, guys. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:00, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

ttbcs
As you may have noticed, I sometimes change English definitions in such a way that upsets the translation tables. I try to determine whether the translations work for the new definitions by reading the glosses for the blue-linked translations, before inserting 'ttbc's. at stake is a recent example. I notice that you usually the most diligent in checking ttbcs. The ttbcs for at stake were apparently worthwhile. Can you tell be whether I have been often missing the mark on others of these, assuming that you notice who added the ttbcs? DCDuring TALK 03:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think I've seen maybe half a dozen cases (which, given the volume of my editings, is not much) in which ttbc's have been used too "liberally", but I don't usually even check who's responsible. So I would guess I have no complaint on your editings. Generally, I think it's often a good idea to keep the ttbc'ed entries where they are instead of moving them to checktrans-section. That makes checking faster, especially when there are multiple senses. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:25, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

eräitten
Could you check this edit? I notice that [[eräs]] gives both forms. Is there a difference in the way the two forms are used? - -sche (discuss) 19:39, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing this out. AFAIK (and I'm supported by the University of Turku and Microsoft Outlook fi-spellchecker) they are parallel forms. I'm not aware of any difference in usage. --Hekaheka (talk) 23:31, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Finnish declensions
Could you look over Special:Contributions/184.179.21.244's changes to the Finnish declension appendices? It looks like they only changed the example words without changing the endings (which would be OK, I suppose), but you're the expert... :) - -sche (discuss) 19:33, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't get it. With the exception of changing jalsi to jälsi (which was a typo), I see no improvement, but no change to worse either. Out of curiosity, I posted a question on the contributor's Talk pge. --Hekaheka (talk) 02:28, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

occupant
Hi, do you mind having a go at the English first sense and add Finnish translations? I think the first one needs to be split. See the talk page as well. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I checked the Finnish translations. I, too, believe that the English definitions might be clearer, but I also believe that it would be better to ask someone native to do it. I have earlier been chastised by EncycloPetey for not understanding enough English to work with English senses. Perhaps you would want to ask him to do it. --Hekaheka (talk) 15:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

hanskakäsi
Hi, I need a Finnish speaker's opinion at WT:RFD. Thanks, --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Finnish rhymes
I noticed you added several rhymes of words ending in -evä but as far as I know all Finnish words are stressed on the first syllable, so it seems a bit odd to treat them as rhymes. Do rhymes work differently in Finnish? 15:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In fact I did not know that the rhymes included in Wiktionary are supposed to be perfect ones. I assumed that General rhymes would be acceptable. And yes, in Finnish words ending with similar-sounding syllables are considered as rhyming even if the stress is not on any of them. If the rhymes need to be perfect, there are probably thousands of rhyming categories in Finnish and IMHO establishing thousands of Finnish Rhymes -pages with only a handful of words in each of them does not make much sense. Also, there is a huge number of words that do not rhyme at all. What do you suggest we do? I haven't worked with too many rhymes so far and undoing them is not too much of a trouble. --Hekaheka (talk) 15:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As CodeCat implies (when she writes, "Do rhymes work differently in Finnish?"), this can really depend on the language. Hebrew rhymes, for example, do not follow the same rules as English. You needn't (and shouldn't) base your rhymes-pages on English rules if they're not the rules that Finnish-speakers use when they try to rhyme. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 15:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Requested entries (Finnish)
Hi. This page has become very slow to load and save, because of the use of the l-template for links (e.g. instead of simply eikun ). You are the main contributor there; would you mind having them all changed to simple links to speed things up? (Same was recently done on WT:REE.) Equinox ◑ 12:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't mind. It appears that a large number of l-templates were added by Mglovesfun on Aug 8th this year. You might want to ask him what he has to say about it. --Hekaheka (talk) 17:04, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

kvass in Finnish
Hi,

You have removed kvassi as the Finnish translation. The word seems to exist in this sense. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 21:41, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Kalja is so much more widely used that I thought it justified to remove kvassi. If you say kvassi to an average Finn, you will probably have to explain the word, whereas kalja is known to everyone. But then, after some further studying, I learned that kvassi and kalja are not exactly the same drink, although they taste and feel the same. The difference is that kvassi is made of bread and kalja is made of malt. I'll re-enter kvassi and make a Finnish entry for it. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:12, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

 * There are various varieties and recipes but I think there are all made of bread. Some varieties are used only to make okroshka, a bit too sour for drinking (depends on individuals). In Japan kvass was sold in vending machines for some time but it wasn't properly promoted and it stopped. I'm a bit surprised kvass hasn't reached Finland in the original form but now in Russia it's now also sold in bottles and I think the taste is not the same. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:24, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Vantaa
Hi,

There is no Finnish entry, only English but there is a Finnish declension template inside English. Please take a look, if you wish. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 12:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. --Hekaheka (talk) 18:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you
I had written the following words in my response to your last post in Requested entries (Finnish), but then I thought it would be more appropriate to put it here. Read it as the first paragraph of my answer :-)

If I got any advanced in my Finnish studies, that has been mainly thanks to your working :-) The answers that you started writing to me two years ago served as an indispensable guidance that I could not get from any tutor in Brazil. Then, I had a spell of inactivity: I went to college in the USA, and I started dedicating myself much more to math that I didn't have time to continue reading books in Finnish. Now, I'm on a gap year to study Math in Moscow since September and I'm going to stay here until May. I am quite excited, because during this winter holidays I decided to make my first trip to Finland! I'll be there from ~18th to the 29th of January, and right now I'm doing a crash course to remember as much Finnish as I can :-) Wisapi (talk) 08:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * What's your plan? Where are you planning to spend your 10 days in Finland? You are the only Brazilian that I have heard of who has an interest in Finnish, so it might be interesting to meet. I'm in Helsinki, btw. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:40, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Onhan pikemminkin hullu suunnitelma^^. Lähden huomenna lentokoneessa Kirovsk:iin, joka sijaitsee 210 km etelään Murmanskista. Siinä ja Murkmaskissa varseinaisessa vierailen ja yövyn kahden CouchSurfing:ssa tapaamieni ystävien luona . Sen jälkeen pääsen Rovaniemelle bussilla. Tapasin usea eri Suomen kaupungeissä asuavia ystäviä CS:n avulla. Aion matkustaa pohjoista etelään liftaten ja yöpyen niiden luona. Viimeinkin saavun Helsinkiin itse asiassa tammikuun 29.:na päivänä, kun onnistin varata paluu-lentoni helmikuun toiseksi :-) Muuten tää olen (sähköpostissäsi): Wisapi (talk) 18:07, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Imported translations for wee-wee from pee-pee and sissy
Hi,

I have imported Finnish translations for wee-wee and trans-see'ed the others, please check if they look OK. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:54, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * They are not good, but perfect! --Hekaheka (talk) 16:51, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Proto-Uralic
Hello Hekaheka, Do you have experience with Proto-Uralic and its sound rules for Proto-Finno-Permic/Proto-Ugric/Proto-Samoyedic? Thanks, Jackwolfroven (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, none whatsoever. Did you already ask User:Jyril? --Hekaheka (talk) 21:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, he did. I really though Jyril would know, but no such luck... @Jack: if you ever feel like learning about Proto-Polynesian, that's the only protolanguage I know much of. I still don't understand how to reconstruct the grammar, but I'm good with the phonology. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Hokutoryu
Hi. I wonder if you can do anything with this new anonymous entry (currently ill-formatted and encyclopaedic). The word looks Japanese rather than English or Finnish, but who knows...? Equinox ◑ 00:15, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It is a style of jujutsu developed in Finland since 1970's. From there it has spread at least to USA, Ecuador and Russia. The word is said to come from Japanese words which mean "northern star", but I find no support for that claim in Wiktionary. Perhaps there is rarely used original wording, nonstandard transliteration or both involved in the etymology. I would say it should be spelled with small initial letter: hokutoryu. It gets 44,500 Google hits, and should thus be attestable. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, hoku definitely means "northern" (it's one of the readings of 北) but I'm not sure about the second part. Perhaps they meant tōryū (逗留). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:07, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Pardon me for butting in, but here's my analysis: 北斗 + 流, the first coming from the title of a famous manga series where the main character used a special move that typically ended the fight in a gory fashion (see w:Fist of the North Star), and the second being a suffix meaning a style of something. I don't know if it's well-established in Japanese, but if it is, it should be Romanized as "hokutoryū." --Haplology (talk) 06:20, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, thank you. I'm not much into action shōnen, so the reference definitely went over my head. (PS: Do you watch a lot of anime? If so, do you watch to improve comprehension or just because you can already understand it?) —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:33, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I doubt the founder of hokutoryu jujutsu, a Finnish security guard who boasts with having beaten 200 men unconscious, is a great admirer of manga. I would rather assume there's a common origin. According to this Wiktionary "hokuto shichisei" (北斗七星) means Big Dipper, which is a pretty northern asterism. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:53, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Japanese is curious. Both 北斗 ("hokuto") and 七星 ("shichisei") seem to have the sense "Big Dipper". --Hekaheka (talk) 07:00, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * @Metaknowledge: I don't usually watch anime or read manga for fun but do occasionally for comprehension, although with Fist of the North Star I actually came in contact with it first through Hokuto-themed pachinko machines.
 * Digging around on JA WP, I can't find any references to real martial arts traditions. It's hard to imagine that Finnish fighter reading manga, but Hokuto no Ken was in publication for a long time and had various spinoffs, so it's about as famous as "Spiderman."  --Haplology (talk) 07:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It's natural that Japanese WP does not have references to martial arts for "hokuto", because this particular style of jujitsu originates and is still mostly practised in Finland, although there seem to be hokutoryu clubs at least in Atlanta, Norfolk (Virginia) and Quito (Ecuador). I added a Finnish entry for hokutoryu. --Hekaheka (talk) 07:51, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

inventio
Re the etymology you added: the Italian word is. The only thing at inventione is a noun-form entry for the ablative singular of the Latin inventiō. Did you mean to write invenzione, "from Latin", or something else? (BTW, as an etymological note FYI: as a rule, Latin -tiō words become -zione in Italian, -ción in Spanish, -ção in Portuguese, -tion in English and French, and so on.) I'm so meta even this acronym (talk) 12:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That was my first thought, too, when I picked this form from Finnish Wikipedia article on "inventio", but then I did some googling. It appears that the form "inventione" has been used in Italian at some point of the history. Perhaps it's an obsolete form. Check these:, , , , , . --Hekaheka (talk) 17:57, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

 * Hmm. Well:
 * "De divina inventione" is Latin; the Italian would be "di divina invenzione" ("of divine invention").
 * Dialogi di Messer Alessandro Lionardi, della inventione poetica, being from 1554, is Old Italian, but it is legitimately that, and not Latin.
 * I'm pretty sure Thermometri metallici ab inventione illustrissimi atque excellentissimi S. R. I. Comitis Loeseri is Latin, too; I translate it (probably quite badly) as "metallic thermometers, from the plan of the most illustrious and distinguished Holy Roman Imperial Count of ?Löser".
 * I'll look at the other three tomorrow. I'm so meta even this acronym (talk) 22:01, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * In mediaeval Italy, I believe both the Latin (abl) and Italian (nom) words were pronounced identically as /in.ven.t͡siˈo.ne/, so it would not surprise me if an Italian author used a more Latinate spelling to sound educated. If such is the case, and it can be attested in (Old) Italian, we can create an entry with . —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Vivaldi seems to have used "inventione" in 1725 . He should know! --Hekaheka (talk) 09:05, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

 * Done and done. Hekaheka, what's your source for the Finnish etymology? I'm so meta even this acronym (talk) 15:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned above, my primary source is the Finnish Wikipedia, which cites Suuri Musiikkitietosanakirja ("Great Encyclopedia of Music") 3 He-Kuud, s. 89-90. Keuruu: Weilin + Göös ja Otava, 1990. ISBN 951-35-4727-2 as its source. --Hekaheka (talk) 10:24, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

 * My apologies. I think I'd fundamentally misunderstood the presentation of the information in and other entries. I've edited the Finnish, German, and Italian entries to prevent anyone else from labouring under the same misapprehension I did. I'm so meta even this acronym (talk) 22:01, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

The etymology looks quite comprehensive now, thanks! --Hekaheka (talk) 03:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

 * I'm glad I could help. I'm sorry to have taken up your time with this issue. I'm so meta even this acronym (talk) 14:02, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

decrypt
Could you please check the Finnish translation? I have made a conversion but the previous format wasn't clear. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. --Hekaheka (talk) 18:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. A few editors started using this tool: User:Kephir/gadgets/xte.js (to use, add, which converts all translations to use . It can't handle well multiple brackets [ [ ] ]  [ [ ] ] well and makes a bit of a mess.  or   ... are preferable. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Finnish entries with missing language
There have been efforts to find and clean up all uses of that are missing a language code. A decent number of entries in Category:term cleanup/Latin extended is Finnish. Could you fix what you can? 16:30, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If it's helpful, you can add the  CSS class to your common.css. If you assign styling to it, you can make terms that are missing a language stand out more (like, really big text and a bright background colour) so that they become easier to find.  16:39, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * All right, I did the letters A to I already. --Hekaheka (talk) 18:16, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to classify Category:term cleanup/Latin extended into subpages by the language of the entry in the manner the translations to be checked are classified? --Hekaheka (talk) 02:03, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. Quite a job, there were some 1,500 of them. --Hekaheka (talk) 23:01, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Vaikuttaa vs. aiheuttaa
Would you please take a look at Talk:vaikuttaa for me? ~ heyzeuss 10:06, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Commented. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:30, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

pälkähästä
Would this be pälkäästä in modern Finnish? 23:52, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it would. This is somewhat unusual, because one would expect päläästä like in . There's also a parallel declension of the type "vastaus": päläksestä. --Hekaheka (talk) 00:13, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it would be more like, which would have originally had the form *kuninkahasta. 13:31, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You might as well be right. According to this article, päläs is also known in the form pängäs, of which genitive would be pänkään in analogy with kangas - kankaan. --Hekaheka (talk) 13:52, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I meant that the gradation of -k- would be the same. Except that the weak grade of -nk- is -ng- while the weak grade of -lk- is just -l-. Gradation was originally predictable, it always occurred when the syllable ended in a consonant. But later changes like the loss of -h- between two unstressed vowels, and the loss of some of the weak grades like -g-, made it harder to grasp. 14:06, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Yhtäsuuri
I just created yhtäsuuri with usage notes. Would you please check it? ~ heyzeuss 08:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. --Hekaheka (talk) 13:26, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. ~ heyzeuss 07:00, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

virsu, virsut
Hi,

Could you created these entries, please? Also, I was able to find Finnish and Veps (from Wikipedia) and Karelian (from another place) terms for bust shoes (lapti) but not the Estonian. Is there an Estonian cognate? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 13:16, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Created. The Veps article in Wikipedia only gives the plural form virzud. I don't know enough Veps to deduce the singular. I did not find an Estonian word for virsu. Perhaps they did not use them. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

 * Thank you. Karelian is virzu -> virzut, see lapti. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 15:00, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Hypothetical indivudual
I am unable to make statements about hypothetical individuals in Finnish in the same way that I do in English. How would you improve the following translations?
 * A man does not just hit a woman.
 * Mies ei vaan lyö näistä.
 * A child cannot lift one hundred kilograms.
 * Lapsi ei pysty noustaamaan sataa kiloa.
 * ~ heyzeuss 09:50, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

 * Very good. I would put them this way:
 * A man just does not hit a woman.
 * Mies vain ei lyö naista.
 * A child cannot lift one hundred kilograms.
 * Lapsi ei pysty nostamaan sataa kiloa.
 * In the first example vaan is common in spoken language, but would be regarded as sloppy in writing. The word order is also important, because vain is understood to refer to the word or phrase immediately after it. Isn't it the same in English? At least to me "A man does not just hit a woman" and "A man just does not hit a woman" communicate slightly different things. In the first sentence I would expect to hear what else the man does. --Hekaheka (talk) 02:17, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose it can be a bit confusing if the word "just" is placed late in the sentence. In any case, I was mainly trying to get at the way the indefinite article "a" affects the meaning of a noun so that its precise identity is irrelevant or hypothetical. I had some trouble trying to explain something to my wife in Finnish, and she completely misunderstood me. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I'll use a cat as a stand-in. She thought I made a statement about a certain cat that I have not previously identified, rather than a hypothetical statement about any cat.

In English, an indefinite article has more than one function:
 * It is something that the speaker is mentioning for the first time.
 * There is a cat in the garden.

 * Its precise identity is irrelevant or hypothetical.
 * A cat could get into the garden.

 * The speaker is making a general statement about any such thing.
 * A cat just does not get into the garden so easily.

 * Perhaps it's not that complicated after all. I would use bare kissa in each of the cases:
 * Puutarhassa on kissa.
 * Kissa voisi päästä puutarhaan.
 * Kissa ei vain pääse puutarhaan kovin helposti.

I can see where the third example could run afoul in translation, because even in English it only seems to work well in the negated sense.

I don't know what qualifiers or syntax will get the right meaning for something specific mentioned for the first time. I've thought of things like Tarhassa on kissa, jokin kissa, tietty kissä. I'm not sure if all of these work.

 * I'd say this shouldn't be too much of a problem, because kissa means both "a cat" and "the cat", depending on the context:
 * Puutarhassa on kissa. Se kävelee nurmen poikki. Nyt kissa kiipeää puuhun.
 * There's a cat in the garden. It's walking across the lawn. Now the cat climbs into a tree.
 * to me, the expression jokin kissa underlines that the speaker does not know the cat. It may also hint that there's something strange about the cat, like when saying "some kind of a cat". Tietty indicates that the speaker knows the cat well and probably doesn't like it. It may be known to the addressee as well - like it could be your neighbour's cat who visits your garden regularly in order to hunt the songbirds. You could also use eräs kissa or a bit colloquially yksi kissa to indicate that you know the cat but you believe the other person doesn't. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:28, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Likewise for hypothetical things, I'm not sure what is the most concise and understandable, like satunainen kissa, mikä kissä tahansa kävisi tarhassa, hypoteettinen kissä.

 * Also here, mere kissa will usually do the job, if the context is clear:
 * Jos puutarhaamme tulee kissa, ajan sen pois.
 * If a cat enters our garden, I will chase it away.
 * You can make it more specific with attributes and changing the word order:
 * Jos se kissa tulee puutarhaamme, ajan sen pois.
 * If that cat enters our garden, I will chase it away.
 * Jos tietty kissa tulee puutarhaamme, ajan sen pois.
 * If a certain cat enters our garden, I will chase it away.
 * Jos mikä tahansa kissa tulee puutarhaamme, ajan sen pois.
 * If any cat enters our garden, I will chase it away.
 * Jos kissa tulee puutarhaamme sounds ambiguous to me, because I wouldn't know whether you mean just any cat or a specific one. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:28, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I think in Finnish, unless otherwise stated, everything is unconditional and absolute within no more than 0.05 standard deviations. It tends to be a problem for me. :D     ~ heyzeuss 22:57, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello,
I am requesting help in creating a system of declension for Karelian, and I was wondering if you were familiar with the language. Porokello (talk) 02:13, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I don't know the language at all. Here's a link to an online summary of Karelian grammar  . --Hekaheka (talk) 06:00, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

keräelmä
Hey there Hekaheka :) Could you possibly create this entry for me, please?  Thanks, <b style="color:#00C">Raz</b><b style="color:#009">or</b><b style="color:#006">fl</b><b style="color:#003">am</b><b style="color:#000">e</b> 01:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It's a rare word derived from the verb . I don't think I have ever seen it before, but I would assume it means some type of random collection (a more organized one would be called kokoelma) of things. Where did you see it? --Hekaheka (talk) 00:52, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I saw it as a translation of an Ido word on the Ido Wiktionary. One of the administrators there, Artomo, is a native Finnish speaker. <b style="color:#00C">Raz</b><b style="color:#009">or</b><b style="color:#006">fl</b><b style="color:#003">am</b><b style="color:#000">e</b> 00:57, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * My intuition on the meaning was right, but it isn't quite as rare as I thought. The word even has an entry in the NSK. Anyway, I have created the entry with a definition but without exact English translation. Now - do you know the English equivalent? --Hekaheka (talk) 08:56, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No, but it seems as if you figured it out :) Thanks for the help, <b style="color:#00C">Raz</b><b style="color:#009">or</b><b style="color:#006">fl</b><b style="color:#003">am</b><b style="color:#000">e</b> 13:23, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Learning Finnish
Hey there. Do you know of any materials I can use on the Internet to help me begin to learn the basics of Finnish? I'm not asking you this because I want to create entries in Finnish here, quite the opposite, I want the materials so I can learn how the Finnish language works, and then, after I feel comfortable enough with making entries, make entries down the road a ways (at least 2-4 months from now). Thanks, <b style="color:#00C">Raz</b><b style="color:#009">or</b><b style="color:#006">fl</b><b style="color:#003">am</b><b style="color:#000">e</b> 23:01, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The University of Helsinki runs courses in "Finnish for foreigners". They have produced this material for self-study: . User HeyZeuss liked this website for grammar: . You can find more by googling "Finnish for foreigners online". Good luck and endurance! --Hekaheka (talk) 21:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the information! I will gladly use it! <b style="color:#00C">Raz</b><b style="color:#009">or</b><b style="color:#006">fl</b><b style="color:#003">am</b><b style="color:#000">e</b> 21:41, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

khyl maar
Someone Finnish said this to me? Do you know what it means? Should we have an entry for it? 01:44, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's a dialectal expression from SW Finland meaning "of course", "by all means", "truly" or "very likely", see . It's a bit ambiguous as is almost anything expressed in that dialect. The correct spelling would be kyl maar, which gets over 13,000 Google hits, many of them referring to permanently archived sources. It's regarded as stereotypically "Turku-ish" (capital of the province). In jokes or sketches, a speaker whose line includes kyl maar is immediately connected with the region. These jokes are abundant, as the dialect sounds somewhat funny for the rest of the Finns. Examples of usage:
 * No kyl maar ny ain yks kaffe maisttu!
 * But of course, one cup of coffee always finds its place!
 * Kyl maar täst viel hyvä tulloo.
 * This will most likely turn out to be a good thing.
 * Kyl maar mää oon hämmästyny.
 * I am truly surprised.
 * I'd think it's entry-worthy, would you? --Hekaheka (talk) 08:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Interface
I added some translations to one of the senses for interface: käyttöliittymä and käyttäjäliittymä. Please verify that they are correct. Also, see if you can think of translations for the other senses as well. ~ heyzeuss 09:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Checked. These are correct translations, but you had placed them under wrong heading in the translation table of "interface". --Hekaheka (talk) 18:18, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. ~ heyzeuss 19:03, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

biological warfare
You shouldn't need to use anymore. If you add embedded wikilinks into the parameters of any of the other translation templates, they will work right. 11:02, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for information. That makes my life a weeny bit easier. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:04, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Tit-for-tat discussion closing request.
Greetings, Hekaheka. I have recently proposed in the Beer parlour that since WT:RFD and WT:RFV are perpetually backlogged with discussions that should have been closed long ago, it would be nice if editors adding a new section to one of these pages would help to move some old sections towards closure/archiving. Since you have added some new RfD sections, please consider closing or archiving some old ones, or otherwise moving old discussions toward closure. Cheers! <i style="background:lightgreen">bd2412</i> T 16:34, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Old Finnish
Mglovesfun changed yrkä from Old Finnish to Finnish stating that there was no such language. There's also kosio. Should Old Finnish be treated as a separate language, and can you advise User:Porokello about this? Thanks. DTLHS (talk) 01:10, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

 * My apologies, if a word has fallen out of usage in a language, how should it be classified? Porokello (talk) 01:14, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

 * You can mark it with . I don't have anything in principle against Old Finnish entries as long as other Finnish editors agree with you. DTLHS (talk) 01:17, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

 * My apologies again, I have seen the label used before on here, I'll be sure to use that label again. Porokello (talk) 01:18, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

 * I agree with the solution of using the labeling technique. --Hekaheka (talk) 03:12, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Putting Grandma out in the snow
Can you shed any light on the wellerism, "eteenpäin, sanoi mummo lumessa?" Sometimes it is "sano mummo lumessa," which seems to give it an entirely different, morbid meaning. ~ heyzeuss 10:44, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you want to know, but it is a popular saying which gets some 20,000 Google hits. According to my experience it is used in difficult situations to encourage folks to not to give up. "Putting Grandma out in the snow" does not seem to translate the essential idea correctly. "Forward!" is something that the grandma says when she is in the snow up to her knees (or something). My translation would rather be:
 * "Forward!", said the grandma when stuck in the snow.

 * Did I manage to answer your question at all? --Hekaheka (talk) 18:12, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

 * Yes, but I'm still unclear about sano versus sanoo. Is sano it just a dialectical form, with only one letter o? ~ heyzeuss 07:17, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Exactly, sano is dialectal form of sanoi, the third person singular imperfect of sanoa. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Beer parlour discussion
Hello, there is a discussion at Beer parlour/2013/September about whether translations into Finnish which are marked as sum-of-parts are actually so. You might want to weigh in. Keφr 06:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Se vaikuttaa hyvältä
I updated the usage notes for ablatiivi, to show how the suffix -lta is added to adjectives. Can you check it? ~ heyzeuss 06:03, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Checked - vaikuttaa hyvältä. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Inhokki
FYI I added inhokki ("pet peeve"). ~ heyzeuss 08:52, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Good! I checked and added the declension. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:42, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Guidelines for Proto-Uralic
Hi,

I've created Wiktionary talk:About Proto-Uralic for putting together guidelines on the topic. I'm CC'ing a bunch of users I know to have done work related to Uralic etymology. Feel free to pass this message further along too. --Tropylium (talk) 20:18, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but Proto-Uralic is not exactly one of my strengths and I don't think I can bring any useful contribution to the discussion. --Hekaheka (talk) 10:18, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

10.000 most common lemmata
Re: "Project: 10.000 most common lemmata in Finnish press". Great project! That's the way to go. --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:14, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yup, and there are only 40 terms left to be done, here: Frequency_lists/Finnish/notexist. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow. There are still 2.500 terms to be done from the top 10.000 of Czech lemmata from a particular corpus. --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

järjestyssäännöt
doesn't add a category anymore, so the entry was orphaned. Secondly, I don't think it's really appropriate to use that template for Finnish anyway, because Finnish has many different plural forms, not just "the plural". It might be better to use another template that can show the cases too. 16:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * No problem for me to start using <fi-form of|WORD|type=POS|case=nominative|pl=plural>, if that is considered better. --Hekaheka (talk) 19:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I do think so, but I don't know if others think so too. In any case, I wanted to let you know that you need to add a category in now, because  doesn't anymore.  20:07, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

mutatis mutandis
Hi Hekaheka. Given your addition of it as a translation for the English(ish) mutatis mutandis, could you create a Finnish entry for the phrase, please? I would be particularly interested to know if/how it inflects. Also see, for your interest/inspiration, Citations:mutato mutando. Thanks. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 18:02, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Done. --Hekaheka (talk) 18:23, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Thanks. No inflection then, huh? *shrug*  — I.S.M.E.T.A. 18:28, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

 * No. Adverbs are seldom inflected in Finnish and even more seldom in all cases. Some of them are comparable, but not this one. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:15, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

 * OK. And is there any evidence for the use of the singular construction, mutato mutando, in Finnish (as in English)? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:25, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

 * I found nothing. Even the plural is not the most common of expressions. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Understood. Thank you for your work on the word. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 16:47, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

inha
I got an email from who has been changing the second definition of inha. I reverted him twice and blocked him for three days because based on the discussion, it didn't look like you would have agreed with the changes. But then I got an email (presumably from the user of that IP address) saying that he had "been conferring with user Hekaheka" and "was given permission to edit the entry". Can you confirm or deny this? --WikiTiki89 00:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * He seems to have an obsession with the word "gross", so much so that he's willing to lie for it. No, we have not exchanged any e-mails. All discussion between us can be read on the RFD page. Perhaps he interpreted my non-answering to his latest comment as giving up. I added this comment to RFD page:
 * -- Furthermore the synonyms "inhottava" & "tympeä" refer strictly to "inho". -- Exactly, that's the point. All the modern usage that one can find, at least by googling, refers strictly to "inho" . That's the very reason for having the second sense. It may be a misconception, and you may not like it, but that is the way the word is currently used. It's normal evolution of the language. Wiktionary is not a normative dictionary, but a descriptive one. Therefore, we must have the second definition, no matter what NSK says. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:35, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks! --WikiTiki89 06:18, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Converting Finnish inflection templates to Lua
I would like to try doing this. One advantage would be that Lua can automatically detect whether a word has front or back vowels, so when everything is finished we won't need those extra parameters anymore. Is there anything I should look out for, or something else I could try to improve? 15:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * My knowledge about Lua is zero, and thus I find it difficult to give any meaningful answer to your question. In fact, I don't have a clue what the word means. How could I learn more about the subject? One problem might be the compound terms which may contain both front and back vowels. But if that is the only advantage, it may not be worth the trouble. On my list the main items that I would like to see improved are:
 * nuoripari -type nouns. Currently we need to combine the templates from two "unit" templates to create a "twin" template and it's a bit cumbersome given the large number of possible combinations and thus necessary templates. A system which could automatically formulate nuoripari -type declensions from the existing "unit" templates would be a big thing.
 * Phrasal verbs. We don't currently have working templates for those phrasal verbs in which the noun part is grammatically an object to the verb part. The problem is that the case of the object varies by the verb form. It's doable within the current framework but it would require extensive modifications to the current template structure.
 * It might be nice if there was a bot for adding inflected forms of nouns and verbs. Manually it can never be done.
 * Perhaps the way to go would be to build a pilot for one declension class and see how it works. --Hekaheka (talk) 17:04, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Lua is a scripting language that has been available on Wiktionary for about a year now. Pieces of Lua code are called "modules" and are in the Module: namespace. It is intended as a supplement or replacement for template code, and can do many more things, and much more efficiently, than template code can. One thing in particular is being able to look inside parameters and the characters that are in them, and it can also replace parts of text with something else. For example it's very easy to take off the -a ending of a noun like "omena" and put "-ien" in its place. This makes it incredibly powerful, and we've been able to simplify many existing templates thanks to it. For example, it made it possible to automatically generate transliterations (which requires searching and replacing characters in a word) and many other things. For Finnish words, it would be able to look for the last vowel in a word, and decide which type of vowel harmony to use automatically.
 * I don't know if it's worth having templates specifically for phrasal verbs. In most other languages, we instead leave a notice that the word inflects as the basic verb. See for an example. The same should probably be done for Finnish too, instead of adding lots of extra complexity to these templates. I don't know what you mean about the case of the object varying by the verb form... could you give an example?
 * Words like "nuoripari" could probably be handled fairly easily, as long as you specify to a future template (to be made) which inflection each part should follow. It could then inflect each part separately, and then stick them together. 17:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I've started working on some base code, and looking at the various Finnish templates to get an idea for what is needed. Unfortunately, none of the templates have any documentation, so I have to guess what each parameter is for. Hopefully I won't guess wrong. I've noticed that has an   parameter. Do you know what that's for? 04:23, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It stands for apostrophe. It is needed in the word and possibly in some others, but none come to my mind right now. It is needed because simple  would add an apostrophe in some unnecessary places, namely in genitive, inessive, elative, adessive, ablative, allative, translative and abessive singular plus nominative plural. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * As  would possibly be necessary in only one word, it might be handled by applying the irregular delension template on the word "koko", as is done e.g. in the case of word . Kaksikymmentä is actually inflected regularly but nobody has bothered to write the template, because this particular combined declension template would only apply to one word. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Do I understand correctly that an apostrophe only appears when a "k" drops out because of gradation, and the two vowels on each side are not both short (at least one is long or a diphthong)? If so, then it could probably be made automatic. 13:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * In addition, the vowel must be the same on both sides. E.g. in the apostrophe is not needed, compare vaoissa, ko'oissa. Other words in valo-class which require an apostrophe are, , ,  and  but they require the apostrophe in every case in which the "k" disappears since the diphthong is in the first syllable. --Hekaheka (talk) 16:23, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I do think that's a rule that can be programmed into the module at some point. That way it can add the apostrophe automatically when necessary. I'm also wondering whether it's possible to apply gradation automatically. I could make it so that it looks at the final consonants of the stem, and automatically applies gradation to them when possible. Of course that requires that the result is predictable from some rule. So is gradation always predictable, if you know 1. that the word gradates, 2. what the strong grade form is, and 3. the same set of letters always produces the same results (no exceptions)? 17:33, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid the rule might be quite complex, see e.g. Appendix:Finnish_declension/valo. Most of the time it's quite predictable but, for example, in valo-class there is maku - maut - makujen but laku - lakut - lakujen. --Hekaheka (talk) 17:54, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There goes that idea then... But if you say in advance that the k will gradate, can you predict accurately what the result will be? 18:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately not. The possibilities are k>(nothing) and k>v (as in suku - suvut). Then there are some words in which the gradation depends on the sense: is inflected differently from . Another pair is  and . Then there are some words which have two parallel declensions, although none come to my mind right now. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Those examples don't really have anything to do with gradation though. In "kuusi", the first has the stem kuute- and the second has kuuse-, so they are underlyingly different. For "vuori", one has the stem "vuori-" and the other "vuore-" so these are different too. And for "suku", the gradation is predictable too because -uku- always gradates to -uvu-. 20:18, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * True, but then again, you must know the stem and teach it to the computer. Also, -uku- becomes -uvu- but you must take into account that -iuku- becomes -iu'u-, -auku- becomes -au'u- and -euku- becomes either -euku- or -eu'u-. It's doable but there are many rules and some occasional exceptions which need to be taken into account. Perhaps the best thing to do now would be to construct a prototype and start experiencing. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * In the past I've found that using existing entries as a "test pool" works rather well. By that, I mean that I have an idea of some kind of pattern, and then I add code to the modules/templates to see if there are any exceptions to that pattern. So, I could set up something in the module I am writing, which would try to generate the gradation "automatically", and then compare the result to the one that is actually given in the template in the entry. If they don't match, it adds the entry to a category. That way, we can use the category to refine the rules until there are no more mismatches. Of course, that only works if there are rules to begin with. If -uku- sometimes becomes -uvu- but it also becomes (for example) -uju- in a few random words, with no way to predict it, then it's just an irregularity that falls outside the normal rules. 23:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I've started converting some of the existing templates to use the module. The ones I've done so far are in Category:Finnish nominal inflection-table templates. The parameters are exactly the same as before, for now. I want to try to improve them, but I think I'll convert all our existing templates as they are first, before making any changes. Could you see if everything works as it should? 23:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The tables look good at first sight. I guess you have taken into account that:
 * valo- and palvelu- type nominals may have "u" as their last letter
 * valtio-type may have "e" as last letter (e.g. aaloe, caddie, collie)
 * in comitative plural the adjectives and numerals don't have "-en" in the end
 * some pronouns are special, see e.g. se, minä, tämä.

In the end of the process you should make a good documentation, so that someone else may modify the code in case you get fed up with Wiktionary. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I've replicated what the templates already do, and the templates still have the same parameters as before. So all of the above points were taken into account as part of that process. The code is hopefully not too difficult to understand. You can look at Module:fi-nominal and you'll see that there are different functions for each declension type. 04:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I did and I saw the functions, but I cannot say that I would understand every bit of it. I guess some more time spent on studying it will help. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:55, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Phrasal verbs
You asked above for an example of the behaviour of the object in a phrasal verb. Let's take. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * All active indicative, conditional and potential positive forms: leivän or leipää, depending on the type of object
 * All passive indicative, conditional and potential positive forms: leipä or leipää, depending on the type of object
 * All indicative, conditional and potential negative forms: leipää
 * 1st and 2nd person positive present imperative: leipä or leipää, depending on the type of object
 * 3rd person positive present imperative: leivän or leipää, depending on the type of object
 * All negative imperative forms: leipää
 * Most infinitives: leivän or leipää, depending on the type of object
 * Short 1st infinitive: leipä
 * 4th infinitive: leivän
 * etc., I'll finish the list if necessary
 * Is the table at wrong? It shows "antaa opetuksen" as the first infinitive, even though that's not the name of the page.  13:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There was an error in template. Now fixed. --Hekaheka (talk) 17:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmm, it wasn't that easy. The templates do not take into account that imperative behaves differently if there is a possessive suffix in the object or there isn't. Infinitives are not perfect either. Some forms in 3rd and 4th infinitive do not always get right. Further, I don't understand why in the entry jättää arpi there stands "jättää arven" as the title in the conjugation box and in the entry antaa opetus the title is correctly "antaa opetus". To me the conjugation templates look the same in this respect and thus they should behave in a similar way. --Hekaheka (talk) 10:10, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Progress
I've reached a point where I think the templates are kind of stable, and they work for now. There is probably more that can be done, but they're all "up to speed" so to say, and have had many parameters removed when they weren't needed. I documented it on Finnish declension-table templates. The table shows the numbers of each parameter for each template. As you can see, the last parameter is always the front/back harmony indicator, no matter what. All parameters are mandatory now, so you have to specify the harmony and all the vowels, it has no defaults anymore. I did this because it only makes it more confusing when you have to remember all the defaults. The way the templates are now, it's fairly simple to determine what the parameters are: I will probably simplify the "lapsi" and "kynsi" types so that only two parameters are needed there too, instead of the current three.
 * If there is no gradation allowed in the template, there are always two parameters, no exceptions.
 * If there can be gradation in the template, then there are 4 or 5 parameters. The 4th gives the final letter(s) that follow the graded consonant before the ending, but only if it is not implicit in the type of declension.

I hope you consider this an improvement. Please let me know what you think so far. 02:53, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

 * To me it looks like an improvement over the template language, which was horrid, especially for people like me who only have a rudimentary understanding of programming languages. It shows promise for future improvements, such as simplifying the process of adding entries to Wiktionary. In the past, the entries had their inflection types identified in their part-of speech sections, and I spent time moving the inflection information from the part-of-speech sections to the inflections sections. It was troublesome to choose the parameters for the declension template for each word, though I found a way to do it semi-automatically, after some practice, based on the existing part-of-speech templates that identified the inflection types. I had to bring in some expensive string parsing templates like len in order to do it, and then justify their use to the Wiktionary community. There are still a lot of words left without inflection templates, and a little bit more automation would be nice in order to match them with their inflection types. Furthermore, I have often dreamed of a standalone script for declining and conjugating Finnish words for use on, for example, my phone. Such a system would necessitate a long list of words and their inflection types. In order to avoid entering the inflection parameters in each entry separately, is it possible to keep them all in a big table and run the lua module from that? ~ heyzeuss 10:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's possible, yes, but it would go against the progressive and open nature of Wiktionary. People shouldn't have to edit a module just to create a new entry with an inflection table. 13:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * In that case, this might be an example of an appropriate implementation of Wikidata, because it would maintain the general spirit of Wiktionary while simplifying batch editing. ~ heyzeuss 16:13, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

piä
This is a dialectal term, and it's confusing the declension template a bit. Words of this type normally follow either the "tie ~ teissä" or the "maa ~ maissa" patterns, but this doesn't follow either of them because it's not standard Finnish. I don't really know how to fix it. 19:17, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The declension that we have looks good enough to me. I'm not a speaker of an eastern dialect myself, so I cannot be 100% sure, however. But dialects usually have lots of local variation and almost by definition they have no standard written form. Therefore, I would let it be like it is and fix it only if we get a true eastern dialect speaker around to tell what is wrong. I had a similar problem when writing the declension table for . The inflection does not follow any of our existing templates as the partitive singular is marosii. One solution that crossed my mind was to leave the declension table out altogether and just mention that as a dialect word the declension is nonstandard. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:07, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The Finnish entry for shows it as if it were a word like "tie", with the plural stem "päi-". Maybe we could do the same. The "aei" that's currently in the entry looks odd.  22:10, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned, I'm not very good in eastern dialects. But if I understand you correctly, the plural would be regular in "tie" -model. I'm sure it isn't and that there's an "e" after "ä". The question is whether there's still an "i" or not. When thinking of it, declension piät - päeden - päetä - päessä - päehin sounds actually better than piät - päeiden - päeitä - päeissä - päeihin to me. I would not be surprised if both were possible - in different regions, of course. --Hekaheka (talk) 23:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

"possessive" parameter
I've noticed that most declension templates have a parameter whose only purpose is to add "en" to the comitative plural. This is called the "possessive" so presumably this is one of the possessive suffixes. But I have two questions about it: 20:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Can any possessive suffix be used there (-ni, -mme, -nsa etc) or does it always have to be -en? If any can be used, should we list all possibilities somehow?
 * When the parameter is not provided, it defaults to "en". So why is the parameter there in the first place? Are there cases when the possessive suffix should be different?
 * To first question: yes, it can be any possessive suffix. To the second question: the trick is that only the nouns get the possessive suffix and adjectives and numerals don't:
 * Hän on vastustamaton kauniine ruskeine silmineen.
 * She is irresistible with her beautiful brown eyes.
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 22:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * So it really depends on the part of speech? Would it make more sense to change this so that you specify,   etc.?  22:27, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, it depends on POS. Your proposal would be more logical, but on the other hand there would be more writing involved unless you can pick the POS automatically e.g. from POS header. --Hekaheka (talk) 23:12, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I made it so that the  parameter defaults to "noun", since there are more nouns than adjectives. There's still a lot of work to be done on the templates in any case, so things may change later.  23:21, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Declension of past passive participles?
It seems that these belong to the "valo" type, but I'm a little confused by this. The page Appendix:Finnish declension/valo says that this type is only for two-syllable words, while the participle is normally at least three syllables. We also have Appendix:Finnish declension/laatikko, which seems like it is actually what is needed because it is the three-syllable variety, but it's only limited to nouns ending in -kko, -kkö and -ttö. Are the descriptions wrong? I compared the different types and the only difference seems to be that the "laatikko" type has several alternative genitive plural forms, and two illative plural forms. Do you know which one is correct? 23:51, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any particular reason why "valo" should be limited to two-syllable words. Perhaps the comment is intended for nouns. At least I cannot quickly think of any non-compound 2+ syllable noun that would be of "valo"-type. But past passive participles are definitely "valo". E.g. "palvella > palveltu > palveltuiden" simply sounds awful to my ear. Also, I don't know why "palvelu" and "laatikko" are separate declension classes. Possibly someone did "palvelu" first but forgot to reserve a possibility for consonant gradation and had to program "laatikko" as well. In NSK palvelu and laatikko both belong to declension class #2. --Hekaheka (talk) 00:28, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The difference is that there are two illative plural forms, one with each grade. The "palvelu" type doesn't have gradation, so it has only one form. There's a similar difference between the "katiska" and "solakka" types, which are analogous but ending in -a. 00:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I see, I didn't realize that. Obviously it would have been cumbersome to program this detail into one template and it was easier to make two. --Hekaheka (talk) 01:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It would have been rather easy to do that with templates. But the templates follow the Kotus numbering, and they split them into distinct types. 01:25, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

sydän
The inflection of this word looks a bit off. Normally in words like this, the weak grade appears in the nominative but the strong grade appears in the genitive. But here there's always a weak grade -d-? 16:06, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The declension is correct as shown. I'm not 100% sure but I suspect it depends on the fact that the "d" is preceded by a vowel and followed by "a/ä". See also aidas, sedan. In fact, I just realized that it isn't that simple, see keidas, hidas. And then again, we have sidos, nidos, kudos. --Hekaheka (talk) 18:00, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * is obviously a recent loanword, and the others all have a weak grade in a closed syllable, as usual. is strange because the weak grade appears even in an open syllable, in the genitive. I noticed the pronunciation note, though. Do you think that because people actually pronounce -mm- here, that it actually acts as a closed syllable even though it's not written that way?  02:46, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm engineer, not linguist, so it's probably better not to try to theorize too much about language.Yours sounds plausible, though. I remember that I was taught already in the elementary school Finnish classes that sydän is a special case. --Hekaheka (talk) 03:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Löytyä
What is the difference between:
 * Niitä ei löydy.
 * Ne eivät löydy. ~ heyzeuss 20:43, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, not much. Partitive is about 100 times as common as nominative in a negative sentence, and most of the time it can be used even of a defined object:
 * Jätin puhelimeni tähän pöydälle, mutta nyt sitä ei löydy mistään.
 * I left my mobile here on the table, but now I can't find it anywhere.
 * Nominative seems to be used, if the object to be found is very clearly identified. The difference is clearer in a positive sentence. If I say Sieltä löytyy mustikoita, I mean that bilberries are usually found in that particular place. If I say Mustikat löytyvät sieltä I'm referring to a specific lot of bilberries that is in a specified place. --Hekaheka (talk) 23:04, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that helps. ~ heyzeuss 07:47, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Added an example of usage of partitive in a negative sentence. --Hekaheka (talk) 08:04, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Could you find some words for me?
I am trying to see if there are any nouns or adjectives in Finnish that fit the following pattern: CVsi or CVVsi (C = consonant, V = vowel), in which the s does not change to t or d through gradation (other types of gradation are ok). So this would exclude (p is not a vowel),  and  (both have gradation to t/d). Do you think you could find any? 17:41, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Here are some: --Hekaheka (talk) 18:05, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * kusi
 * pisi
 * kuusi (tree)
 * rasi
 * raasu
 * kaasu
 * kiisu
 * lasi
 * kasi
 * Pasi
 * Juuso
 * loosi
 * Thank you. What I'm wondering about specifically is why doesn't have a final vowel. From an etymological point of view it's kind of odd. It's the only noun with two syllables in the genitive, but no final vowel in the nominative (all other words with no final vowel have three syllables or a contracted vowel in the genitive). So I'm trying to find words that have a word structure similar to, but with the extra -i. So far only  fits, but that does mean that my theory might not be correct.  19:00, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * This is just a wild guess but could it have had a final "i"? The form miesi appears in Kalevala and Kanteletar, and  used it . On the other hand it may also be a poetic construction. I'm not aware e.g. of proverbs or derived or compound terms which would have preserved miesi. Estonian has mees and Karelian has mies. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:04, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * FWIW, since I happen to have it to hand: the Finish Bible of 1548 has "Nin sairasti yxi Mies / Lazarus..." in John 11.1, where the Bible of 1938 has "ja eräs mies, Lasarus...". I don't see miesi anywhere. (That doesn't prove that it didn't exist, though.) - -sche (discuss) 04:34, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * What I'm trying to figure out is, if it was there, why did it disappear in this noun alone, and not in any other nouns? And I also wonder, if it was not there, why is this the only two-syllable noun with no final vowel in the nominative? Basically I just wonder why this noun is so unique, being unlike all other nouns in Finnish (or Proto-Finnic). 21:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid we'll never know for sure. This is an old word, predating all written records by possibly thousands of years. It just occurred to me that many words ending in -si have the tendency to lose the final "i" in spoken language. For example ensi vuosi (next year) often becomes ens vuos and viisi becomes viis. Interestingly kuusi (six) often becomes kuus but kuusi (fir) doesn't. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * That happened in many other Finnic languages too. But it certainly hasn't completely disappeared in Finnish, which tends to preserve those vowels at least formally. That means that the disappearance could not have happened long ago. What is puzzling about is that, as far as I can tell, the final vowel had already disappeared in Proto-Finnic, long before any of the later languages (like Estonian and colloquial Finnish) started to lose their final vowels. So that is somewhat strange, especially if this is the only two-syllable word where this happened. You could ask whether there was a final vowel to begin with... but that doesn't really make the word any less special, it just changes how it's special: why was it the only two-syllable word that had no final vowel?
 * Final -i often disappeared in three-syllable words in Proto-Finnic. That's well-established and there is also some evidence for that still in Finnish if you look carefully. You probably know how the word has the genitive  and the essive . The gradation between t and d is normal, but the nominative and the plural forms have s instead. This is because earlier, -ti became -si, but -te- and -de- didn't change, so you have s whenever an i follows, and t or d when some other sound follows. But now look at words like . The genitive is, the essive is . You see the same alternation between s in the nominative, and t or d in the other forms. But in this case, the nominative just ends in -s, not -si! However, because of the pattern of changes in the consonants, which are just like , you can see that this word, and other words like it, must have once ended in -i in the nominative as well. This then caused the change -ti > -si, but after that, the final -i disappeared, leaving only the -s.
 * doesn't have such an alternation; instead, s alternates with h. That's an indication that the original sound was actually s, not t, so the ti > si change does not apply here. That means that I'm not able to figure out, from Finnish evidence alone, whether this word originally had a final -i or not. 23:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Original final *s seems more probable; there's a suggested etymology for this from Germanic *mēgaz "male relative". By direct adoption from this we'd expect something like ˣmieas : ˣmiekaa- or ˣmie'e : miekee- in Finnish though (and, for that matter, something like megas or megeh in Veps), so this requires assuming an irregular shortening fairly early on. (Perhaps by analogy to *naa "woman", if this had yet to be extended to *na-inen at this time?)
 * An older Finno-Ugric etymology attempts to relate this to Ugric *mäńćɜ "people" (> Mansi, magyar, etc.) instead, but this is not accepted these days, due to the difficulty in getting rid of the supposed once-final vowel. --Tropylium (talk) 04:49, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Finnish words suffixed with -ntaa
Hi,

What's the verb for translating into Russian, please? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 06:03, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's . --Hekaheka (talk) 08:28, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you! --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 13:14, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

nukkien
Do all words of this declension type allow the genitive plural in -ien, or only this word? It could be added to the declension table if needed. 17:49, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I checked our list of nalle-type nominals, and it's definitely not a feature of all the words in the list. In case of, dogien seems to be the most frequently used genitivie plural, but with the rest -ien -genitive would sound odd to me. --Hekaheka (talk) 19:33, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It makes me wonder if our templates are really adequate to express the variation among the genitive plural forms. It's still a bit of a mystery to me why some endings are fine with some nouns, but sound odd with others. What goes on inside the mind of Finnish speakers when they try to decide what ending to use? 20:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * To be honest, it's a bit of mystery to me as well. Somehow, when you have grown up speaking Finnish you know how to inflect a word, even if you haven't heard it before. If I invite a word which follows the ordinary patterns of word formation in Finnish, I will immediately know how to inflect it. There's a very limited number of words which do not quite fit in, and nukke is one of them. Loanwords from e.g. English and French are sometimes problematic because their written and pronounced appearances may lead to different conclusions regarding their inflection, see as an example. If it were agreed to spell the word in Finnish as dedlain in accordance with the pronunciation, it would quite clearly be a risti-type word. To sum up, for at least 99 % of material, our templates are adequate. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I did find a (rather technical) paper that discussed the use of the different genitive plural endings. Apparently, different endings are used depending on the length of the preceding syllables. It has something to do with choosing between whether the penultimate syllable is short or long (with the ending attached), and the ending that is chosen is the one that makes the penultimate syllable have the right length to "fit in" with the stress pattern of the rest of the word. Words ending in a long syllable always use the endings where the penultimate syllable of the genitive plural is also long, for example. It's quite interesting to read even though there is a lot of it I don't understand yet, especially a lot of linguistic jargon. It's here if you want to read it.
 * In any case, this doesn't necessarily apply to words like . There are nouns that have the same general word shape, but still have different endings. For example has, while , which looks almost the same, has . In this case the rule is related to the vowel in the first syllable: if it's a, e or i, it uses -jen, otherwise -ien. I wonder if that rule also works when applied to the nalle-type words.  21:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid the vowels don't explain everything. The word palle looks almost the same as Kalle and nalle, but it is of hame-type and becomes palteiden in genitive plural. To my knowledge, nukke is the only non-loanword (or a loanword Finnicized to the point that it's not easily recognized as a loan) of nalle-type which features -ien ending in genitive plural. On the other hand, it's the only one with a short "u" in the penultimate syllable. Anyway, one would have to add "o" to the "a-e-i" rule because of . --Hekaheka (talk) 03:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * So there's no ? 12:16, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No, there isn't. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:11, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Finnish verb question
Does it ever happen in Finnish that an incomplete/partial object would be in a case other than partitive at the same time having the same exact meaning. Couple of hypothetical examples (I'm sure the grammar will be completely off but maybe they will make some sense):

 * ma otsin saksia (this would be the "normal" order of things – using partitive.)
 * viimeisestä mohikaanista etsimässä (hypothetical example using elative.)

Does something like that ever happen (maybe as a poetic device.) This does seem to be happening in Estonian but I'm not sure, I proposed specifying this in the headword line when applicable (in a somewhat unnecessarily lengthy discussion) but perhaps in the event that this is nonexistent in Finnish I should tread more carefully and do some more research. Neitrāls vārds (talk) 06:18, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

 * AFAIK, a partial object is always in partitive. It may be confusing that sometimes the partitive form looks like it could be in elative, as in veitsi - veistä (elative: veitsestä) or kukkanen - kukkasta (kukkasesta). Your examples would be:
 * Minä etsin saksia.
 * Viimeistä mohikaania etsimässä.

In fact, using elative in the second example would indicate that one is looking for something in the last Mohican - like a louse or something. --Hekaheka (talk) 08:42, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

 * ...or a gerbil. :D Anyways, thanks for the info, any possible cases of this in Estonian probably need more scrutiny. While I'm at it, in case you are not using a user-defined style on wikis there is a section in BP calling for opinions on the new layout (and perhaps a possible disabling of it) well, that's of course if you have any opinions about it. Neitrāls vārds (talk) 11:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Contact person
Isn't yhteyshenkilö a bit more common than yhdyshenkilö? ~ heyzeuss 08:03, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * True. It seems to be about 25 times as common as yhdyshenkilö. They are pretty much the same thing. --Hekaheka (talk) 08:47, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

aborttipilleri
Does this really signify the morning-after pill? It's a great misnomer if true, because the morning-after pill inhibits ovulation, so no egg will be there for the sperm to fertilize, thus there is nothing to be aborted. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 01:28, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my mistake. I had never really thought about it, and I believed they were the same thing, like katumuspilleri/morning-after pill being an euphemism. Thanks for pointing this out. --Hekaheka (talk) 03:46, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

A small fix
I thought this might be useful. 00:02, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The reason why I have chosen to use the more complicated way of writing "third person…" is that the suffix -en has several functions and the third person possessive is but one of them. A non-expert user might get confused. --Hekaheka (talk) 03:48, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

elde
Hi Heka! Is there any Finnish word for "horse" that looks like "elde" or "alda"? A couple of references posit such a word, in Finnish or another Finno-Ugric language, as the ultimate etymon (via Old Norse) of English "yaud". - -sche (discuss) 03:31, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * You mean that the word looks like "elde" or "alda"? I'm not aware of any that goes even close, which of course does not mean that there never was such word. In Moksha and Erzya there's word эльде which means "mare". Mare is tamma in Finnish. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:42, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Moksha and Erzya were exactly what we were looking for! --WikiTiki89 13:47, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It fills my heart with joy that someone is showing interest to the smaller Fenno-Ugric languages. They are under constant threat of vanishing under the pressure of the Russian mainline culture, as minority languages tend to be everywhere. --Hekaheka (talk) 13:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I try to take some interest in all small languages, but there are too many. In this case we were just trying to identify a reference to "Mordivin al'd'a", but now that I know about the existence of these languages, I will definitely try to learn more about them. --WikiTiki89 14:01, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Johdosten vokaaliharmoniakategoriat
Terp,

Huomasin että olet laittanut -ntää-verbejä yhteen ja samaan kategoriaan -ntaa-verbien kanssa. Kuulostaa ihan fiksulta; sietäisikö muutkin vastaavat tapaukset niputtaa yhteen, ja ehkä jotenkin uudelleenohjata kasaan? Tällä hetkellä esim. seikkailee kategoriassa -kka, mutta omassa pikku kategoriassaan -kkä. --Tropylium (talk) 19:54, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Minusta juuri näin voisi tehdä, koska vokaaliharmonian vaihtelu ei mielestäni tee eri suffikseja vaikkapa päätteistä -han ja -hän. Jos vain aikaa ja intoa riittää, niin siitä vain yhdistelemään! Mukavaa muuten, että tänne on ilmestynyt toinenkin suomalainen. Käyttäjien Frous ja Jyril vetäydyttyä olen käsittääkseni pitänyt Suomen lippua esillä lähes yksinäni. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:51, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Jep, morfologisesti kyse on samasta päätteestä //-hAn//. Eri asia ovat samaa morfologista funktiota edustavat päätteet joilla kuitenkin on eri asu, esim. pestä : pes-u; pelätä : pelk-o; piestä : piekse-ntä.
 * Sanoja toki ei ole vaikeaa siirrellä kategoriasta toiseen. Mutta sitä mietin, onko Mediawikissä olemassa mitään automaattista konstia, jolla kategoriaan X laitetut sanat voisi "uudelleenohjata" kategoriaan Y? Tai edes mitään konstia seurata kategoriaan ilmestyviä sanoja automaattisesti (ainakin Commonssissa tähän on mahdollisuus). Ehkä pitää kysellä Rasvakuopassa…
 * Katsotaan miten monelle projektille minulla aikaa täällä riittää. Mutta pitänee tässä joskus koittaa tosiaan töniä ainakin Jyriä (tuttu mies) vähän aktiivisemmaksi. Toki on aina kiva jos on muitakin käyttäjiä joilta kysyä, miten juttu Z kannattaisi tehdä. --Tropylium (talk) 19:33, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Korjaan: osoittautuu että kyseessä ei ole kumpikaan tuntemistani lingvistisesti suuntautuneista ja netissä aktiivisista Jyri L:istä.--Tropylium (talk) 18:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Status of the Finnish declension templates
Now that the templates have been in their new state for a while, is everything ok with how they work? Is there anything you think needs to change? If so, is it ok if I start working on the verb templates next? —CodeCat 17:34, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you wrote earlier that you would be able to include the compound templates of type fi-decl-type1-type2 into your framework. That would be a real improvement. It would save the trouble of writing separate templates for potentially hundreds of typex-typey combinations. The verb templates are a bit problematic, because they don't currently work properly for phrasal verbs in which the non-verb part is an object for the verb. Also impersonal verbs such as harmittaa, tuntua or sataa do not really fit into current way of presenting the conjugation. Further, there are verbs in which only the third person is relevant (none come to my mind right now, but I remember having encountered them every now and then). In addition, there is a set of verbs which have two stems (e.g. kumista - kumajaa), and our current templates do not support them. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * For those two stems, are they not really just two separate verbs?
 * That's how we have treated them, but NSK says kumajaa is an alternative form of kumista. This is because kumajaa does not have all forms. I'm not convinced that our present conjugation of kumajaa is right. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I could probably try to make the compound templates work, but I'm wondering what the best approach would be. The problem is that each type of declension different parameters. Take for example the koira-valo combination. The koira type by itself takes 4 parameters, while valo by itself takes 5. I would imagine that you'd specify each type in turn, followed by the parameters, so something like: . I think I could make that work, what do you think of that?
 * There's also the question of the part of speech of each part, for the comitative plural form. Is it safe to assume that if there are multiple parts, only the last one can be a noun and the rest are always adjectives? —CodeCat 21:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I just realised there is a much bigger problem. When words have multiple alternative inflections, how should they be matched up with the other word? For example let's say the adjective is of the palvelu-type and has genitive plural forms ending in -jen, -iden and -itten. But the noun is of the kulkija type and has only -iden and -itten. How should these forms be combined? Similar problems would exist with any inflection that allows alternative forms. I don't think there is really a good way to solve this. For most other languages, problems like this exist too, and we just use a template like which tells people to look at the declensions of the individual words. I think it would save a lot of headaches if we did that for Finnish too. —CodeCat 21:39, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I just found an example of this in our existing templates: . It gives two forms, "korkeiden paperien" and "korkeitten papereiden". But presumably, "korkeiden papereiden" is also a valid combination, as are "korkeitten paperien", "korkeiden papereitten" and "korkeitten paperien"? If we have to list all possible combinations of forms it becomes a rather long list. —CodeCat 21:50, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not exactly wrong to say korkeiden papereitten, but the words are usually not combined in any which way. The speakers tend to choose forms that rhyme best. Korkeitten papereiden is thus rare (fraction of 1 percent of usage) and should be replaced with korkeiden papereiden. Also, korkeiden -type declension beats korkeitten -type by 10:1 to 20:1 in frequency in a quick Google test, depending on which adjective one chooses. As it does not necessarily make sense to list every possible combination, it might be a good idea to choose 1 to 4 most frequently used combinations. In case of korkea-paperi, korkeiden paperien and korkeiden papereiden would appear to cover some 80…85% of usage. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * But the module has no idea what the usage frequencies are, it just adds bits of text together the way it's programmed to. If we're going to add that kind of sophistication to it, it's going to get a lot more complex. Maybe not worth it? —CodeCat 11:56, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Module:fi-verbs
I've created this and converted to use it. So far, things seem to work ok, but I haven't implemented qualifiers yet so those will not appear right now. I am wondering if we should even include them, because of my point above concerning nouns. We could always just refer people to the base verb? —CodeCat 20:35, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * We could refer to the base verb, but then we would lose the possibility to show how the case of object varies by verb form or how the possessive suffixes are used. That's why we began to add the qualifiers in the first place. Ajaa partansa is an example of both. It also demonstrates that our current template isn't perfect. Second person present imperative forms should be "aja partasi" and ajakaa "partanne".  To get the template such that it produces correct forms in every thinkable case would require quite a bit of built-in flexibility from the coding and careful planning before doing any programming. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:16, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * In other words: it is not necessarily the best possible strategy to copy the logic of the existing templates. Instead, I believe it would be better to design a new one from scratch. If automatic shift-over to new template would prove cumbersome, we could let the old and new templates coexist as we have done in the case of tuoli and risti (perhaps not the best thinkable example, as it would probably be an easy job for a bot-wizard to convert all tuoli's to risti-type, but no one has bothered to do it so far). --Hekaheka (talk) 06:32, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * What I've done so far is make the module categorise entries that include a qualifier into Category:fi-conj with qual. That way, we can at least find them and fix them some other time when we know how. —CodeCat 11:59, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I've converted all the standard Kotus verb types to the module. Some of the parameters have changed, mostly in the same way that they have changed for the nominal templates: all numbered parameters are required, and the templates take either 2, 4 or 5 of them in the same pattern. I've documented them on Finnish verb inflection-table templates. —CodeCat 14:33, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * You don't seem to be good in listening. The conjugation of all phrasal verbs is now messed up. --Hekaheka (talk) 00:57, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I said that qualifiers were not fully implemented yet. At worst, it doesn't show them, but that's not a huge disaster. Again as I said the entries which use them are in a category, so that we can find them when we know how to make them work. But if you want me to fully implement the qualifiers so that it covers all entries which use them currently, then I will. I was just letting it wait in case we decided to change how the qualifier parameters work. —CodeCat 01:54, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

ylttää
This is currently conjugated as a huutaa type verb, but that doesn't seem right. The past tense in particular seems odd. Could you check it? —CodeCat 18:27, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a muistaa-type verb. Fixed. --Hekaheka (talk) 00:54, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Toimi type
Appendix:Finnish declension lists "toimea" as an alternative, which is taken from the Kotus listing. Is this wrong? —CodeCat 08:30, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, to the best of my understanding, it's wrong. --Hekaheka (talk) 09:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's more problematic than I thought. I have NSK in my bookshelf, and it only lists -nta ending for this declension class. Since the publication of NSK, some of the words of this type have acquired an alternative, -mea partitive, which in some cases is more frequently used than the original -nta ending. It's a small class anyway. If we leave out compounds, en-Wiktionary lists only 8 words in this category: niemi, lumi, luomi, liemi, tuomi, toimi, taimi, and loimi, and I don't think many more exist. Of them, lumi, taimi and liemi are almost exclusively inflected with -nta. It was lumi and liemi which I had in mind when I edited the template. Especially lumea and liemeä are clearly errors. Then there are two with which -nta is clearly preferred: toimi and luomi, and three which prefer -mea: niemi, tuomi and loimi. Now, what to do with the inflection template? As Kotus really lists -mea as alternative inflection, we could return the template as it was and write a usage note in lumi, taimi ansd liemi, unless you find a nice way of including this non-conformity in your template. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * BTW, this is a good site for checking Finnish declensions. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:23, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's hard for templates to account for variations in individual words. Templates are by design meant for showing the same content on different pages. So a usage note on the individual entries is probably more effective in this case. —CodeCat 11:56, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * What about adding in every template a possibility for an optional comment box, which one could activate e.g. like this: ? This would facilitate adding of identical comments to every compound term in which lumi is the headword. If there's no comment, then there would not be any box. --—CodeCat 13:26, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's possible, but then we might as well just write the comment above the inflection table. There's not really any direct benefit to putting the comment inside the table. —CodeCat 13:28, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * One interesting bit of information: NSK has two declension classes where Kotus has only one. NSK lists "lumi" [with -nta] for lumi, liemi, toimi and taimi, and "tuomi" [with -mea (-nta)] for tuomi, luomi, niemi and loimi. In fact, NSK lists "niemi" as a group of its own, but the only difference to "tuomi" is the vowel harmony. The usage has changed quite a bit in 50 years. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:51, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * All of that concerns standard languages, though. Wiktionary is descriptive, so if something is considered wrong, it doesn't mean it's never used. So for these words we can note that they are proscribed, but if people still use them we should note that too. —CodeCat 21:12, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Of course, I didn't mean that this bit of information should have any practical consequences to the project. On the other hand, if something is considered wrong we do a karhunpalvelus to our readers if we don't mention it. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:48, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Unusual gradation patterns
I've created a Lua function that automatically applies gradation following fixed rules. It gives the correct result in almost all cases, and the few cases where it does not work, we can perhaps add an exceptional parameter. So we may be able to use this in the future, and remove the "weak grade" positional parameter from all the templates where it's not needed.

I made a list of all the entries where a problematic or unusual gradation pattern was found which did not match what the function automatically generated: User:CodeCat/Finnish unusual gradations. These nouns would presumably need an extra parameter to override the automatically generated weak grade, but there's not that many. There are a few things I noted about the results:
 * lke/rke gradates to lje/rje in most cases, but there are two verbs where the weak grade has le/re. Are these verbs standard Finnish? -- Yes, heretä and keretä are standard, AFAIK. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Whether lki/rki "normally" gradates to li/ri or to lji/rji is apparently not easy to determine, as both possibilities occur about evenly. However, the nouns and  probably keep their j from the base verbs, where it is regular. I assume that lki/rki ~ li/ri is the default pattern. -- I would need some examples. Right now no words with lki/rki ~ li/ri cross my mind. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * For hke the results are also mixed; there are several roots with hje and a few with he. Possibly dialectal variation? -- Possibly. No words with hke to he come to my mind right now. Could be dialectal, but on the other hand, many originally dialectal words have become assimilated into standard language. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Several words have ljä/rkä ~ ljä/rjä, lky ~ ljy and even lka ~ lja, but these are all alternatives or archaic terms so I assume they are just irregular/nonstandard. --I would say they are neither, they are just variants to me. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Two terms have t ~ ø, which is presumably dialectal? I think northern and eastern Finnish have this as a regular pattern? --Might as well be - soudan becomes souan in some dialects. But on the other hand, loue is the standard and loude is a rare exception. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I would appreciate your feedback on this. —CodeCat 12:37, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * You are asking difficult questions. I'm born with the language, and it has never occurred to me to analyze where everything comes from. Languages usually behave illogically and Finnish is no exception.

looong talk page
My computer started to choke. You should archive some of it  Yup I'm making it longer. Equinox ◑ 03:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice. What is the recommended way of archiving? Can you point out a good example to follow? As a matter of fact, a lot of the stuff on this page could simply be deleted, but doing nothing is always the easy option. --Hekaheka (talk) 07:51, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Well, you might just create further pages under your user space, such as User talk:Hekaheka/2013. Equinox ◑ 23:39, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

 * Hekaheka, five years have passed. Will you let me do it? Please? I'll archive your talk and you won't even know anything changed. Equinox ◑ 17:33, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

empty-handed
I tried adding a Finnish translation request for you here but it failed. :( ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Problem fixed (request added). There's no need to use manual edit. Just use in JavaScript or if you wish to edit manually:  --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 06:08, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks Anatoli. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Template:fi-IPA and Module:fi-IPA
This template automatically converts Finnish words into phonemic IPA. So you can use it instead of the normal template for most Finnish words. I hope it's useful, and let me know if there are any problems or inaccuracies. —CodeCat 20:13, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

kerma
An IP added some things here that seem a bit odd, but I don't know if it's outright wrong. Can you check? —CodeCat 21:59, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for notification. Chuck Entz had already reverted it. Really odd edit. It didn't look like ordinary vandalism. I wonder where he/she got their wrong impression. --Hekaheka (talk) 00:57, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Request
Who requested for you to add a picture at Eurasian lynx ? Zeggazo (talk) 14:27, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Dunno, there was a request posted on that page. Why do you ask? You may delete the picture, if it disturbs you. --Hekaheka (talk) 15:21, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The request had been posted by User:DCDuring. You could have checked it yourself from the page history. --Hekaheka (talk) 15:24, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

räystäspääsky
Would this be right as a translation for both Delichon (house martin) and Delichon urbicum (common house martin, northern house martin, house martin)? Is it worth a distinction at all? DCDuring TALK 18:45, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Räystäspääsky may mean three distinct but overlapping things. The primary, original meaning is "bird of the species Delichon urbicum" but it may also be used of the two other species in that genus and in plural, it may mean the genus Delichon. The two other species also have more specific names i.e. aasianräystäspääsky and nepalinräystäspääsky. I changed the entry to accommodate all these aspects. Is it clear enough now or did I manage to confuse the reader even more? --Hekaheka (talk) 19:46, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It makes sense to me, but I'm getting used to this kind of thing. Your entries reflect my basic expectations about how most vernacular names for common living things work: the local species, if only one, is the type. The term is generalized to include sufficiently similar species. Plurals could be used for higher groupings. It's not all that dissimilar from the evolution of taxonomic names. In the case of a language with a regulatory authority, "sufficiently similar" may be made to coincide with taxonomic groupings. English is more of a jumble of possibilities, especially with British Isles, North America and ANZ having different species and genera (not to mention differences within ANZ and North America), lots of borrowings, and no powerful regulatory authority. DCDuring TALK 22:22, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

päällitse
I came across this word but I'm having trouble figuring out what it means. It almost looks like the prolative suffix added onto. Could you make an entry for it? —CodeCat 01:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You are on the right track. It's the same form as in maitse, meritse, postitse, vesitse, puhelimitse, alitse, ylitse, lävitse… I need to figure out how to translate it into English. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * But is already a case form of another word. I don't think I've ever seen one case suffix added onto another. —CodeCat 14:29, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Again, I'm not linguist, but I can think of one way to make it at least sound a little bit logical. Päällä, alla, yllä, ohi and läpi are both postpositions and adverbs which express static position in relation to something. If we think of them as adverbs in their own right (despite of some of them having the same form as a case of another word and one of them being also a noun) we can add the prolative ending -tse into each of them to construct postpositions and adverbs that express movement through a position which is defined relative to an object or place, which can be real or figurative:
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * --Hekaheka (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

keväs?
Would you happen to know if exists as an old-fashioned or dialectal alternative form of the nominative singular of ? —CodeCat 20:29, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I have never heard it, and NSK doesn't have it. I found scarce usage in the internet but they could be typos as well. What makes you think that the form might exist? --Hekaheka (talk) 22:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The Proto-Finnic form was and the word originally had the same s/t/d alternation that you still see in  and nouns like . So I wondered if the original nominative form has survived in Finnish. —CodeCat 23:34, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Xuan paper
You might want to double check your translation here; rice paper and Xuan paper are not the same thing. Have a look at the relevant Wikipedia pages when you have time. ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:29, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia article on Xuan paper begins like this: "Xuan paper (xuanzhi simplified Chinese: 宣纸; traditional Chinese: 宣紙; pinyin: xuānzhǐ), or Shuen paper or rice paper, is a kind of paper originating in ancient China used for writing and painting", which is esy to misinterpret as saying that rice paper and Xuan paper were the same thing. Only by reading the article on Rice paper one finds out that Xuan paper is a hyponym to rice paper. --Hekaheka (talk) 09:52, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

väkkärä
Hi, I have a question for you about a particular word. If the term väkkärä is real, could you give it a declension table? Thank you for your understanding and mine. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 20:30, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's real, I'll do the declension. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:49, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * P.S. Have you ever considered archiving your discussions? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 20:31, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I actually set out to do that once, but obviously I got distracted. I had forgotten that I never finished. Done now. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:49, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

title: User talk:Hekaheka/Archive 2011 2014