pidä kiirettä

pidä kiirettä! (phrase) –

Hurry up! (Or come on!)

In today’s example phrase,  pidä is the second-person singular imperative present form of the verb pitää.  Pitää has the primary meaning of ”like” or ”be fond of” but it has many possible meanings like ”do,” ”have” or ”conduct” when combined with nouns in figures of speech.

See pitää fully conjugated here. And read about it’s many usages here.

In the second part of our example phrase, kiirettä is the partitive singular form of the noun kiire, meaning ”hurry” or ”haste.” See kiirettä declined here.

Our whole phrase, ”Pidä kiirettä! Ohjelmistossa vain 25.5. saakka” translates as ”Hurry up! The show runs only until May 25th.”

Other example phrases using pidä in the imperative:

pidä hauskaa – have fun!
pidä turpasi kiinni – keep your mouth shut!
pidä huolta – take care (of)!

yksityisalue

yksityisalue (noun) –

Private area.

Yksityisalue is made up of yksityis-, a prefix meaning ”private” and alue, meaning ”area.”

Another handy word to know as it will keep you out of trouble. The whole sign reads ”Yksityisalue. Luvaton pysäköinti kielletty,” or ”Private area. Unauthorized parking prohibited.”

pääsiäisen aukioloajat

 pääsiäisen aukioloajat

MEANING:

Phrase: Easter opening hours.

EXTRA CREDIT:

Notice in the store sign special hours for kiirastorstai (Maundy Thursday) and pitkäperjantai (Good Friday.)

There are some hours on Lauantai (Saturday), but most stores in Finland are closed all day Easter Sunday as well as the Monday after.

näillä kulmilla

näillä kulmilla (phrase) –

”Around these parts” or ”in the neighborhood.”

Näillä is the adessive plural of nämä, which means ”these.” (See how nämä is declined here.)

Kulmilla is the adessive plural of kulma, which means angle or corner. (See how kulma is declined here.)

Adessive case has the basic meaning of ”on” something, but can also mean ”being around it”

This sign currently on the corner of Kiasma’s building in Helsinki’s City Center reads, Nykytaidetta  näillä kulmilla, which roughly translates as ”Contemporary art from around these parts.”

There seems to be a bit of a play on words going on here since kulma means corner and this is written on the corner of the building.

täysikuu

Full moon over Minneapolis, 2005 – Photo by David de Young

täysikuu (noun) –

Full moon.

Today’s word of the day is brought to you by today’s full moon. You probably already know the word kuu, meaning moon.  Just add the adjective täysi, meaning full, utter, total, or consummate and you have this handy compound noun.

tiputtaa

tiputtaa (verb) –

Drops, drips, drops off.

In our example phrase, tiputetaan is a passive form of the verb tiputtaa.

”Varo! (Watch out!) Katolta tiputetaan lunta ja jääta!!!” literally translates as ”From the roof is being dropped snow and ice!!!” In Finnish, when the passive voice is used, it normally implies that a person or people are doing it.

Hopefully we won’t be seeing too many more of these signs for too much longer as the weather begins to warm up. In the meantime, be careful out there!

Further study:

See tiputtaa fully conjugated here, and some in depth discussion on passive voice in Finnish here, especially noting two interesting points: 1) There are no first second, or third person forms of verbs in the passive voice. And 2) It can also be said that in the Finnish passive the agent is always human and never mentioned.

väritön and värillinen

väritön and värillinen (adjectives) –

Väritön means colourless and värillinen means coloured. In the case of the glass recycling bins shown here, this is helpful to know. In the case of glass, you can think of väritön as clear.

I got tired of peering in from the top to remember which was which because the words are similar. (If you forget which is which on the glass bins in Helsinki, notice that the väritön is white and värillinen is green, but that’s also cheating!) It’s helpful to remember that the words ending in -ton mean that they don’t have the substance referenced in the word root. Other examples are laktoositon which means lactose-free and sokeriton which means sugar-free.

On the other hand, Finnish words suffixed with -llinen are typically adjectives describing possession of the substance or having the quality of the root of the word. Examples: onnellinen (happy) and ovellinen (has a door), aamullinen (occuring in the morning), lusikallinen (spoonful) or lapsellinen (childish). See many more such -llinen words here.

kohdallaan

kohdallaan (adjective) –

In place.

”Kaikki on kohdallaan,” means ”everything is in place.”

The word is also sometimes seen in in the phrase ”hinta kohdallaan” or ”hinta on kohdallaan,” as in today’s example of the window sign on K-Market where it means more figuratively ”the price is right.”

kätevä

kätevä (adjective) –

Handy.

In the example photo, on the box of Oululainen brand Hapankorppuja (”sour biscuits”), ”Uusi kätevä pakkaus!” means ”New handy package!”

I never saw the old package, but according to my wife, the old one was taller and the new one really is handier!

henkilökunta

Henkilökunta (noun) –

Staff.

You may often see signs around Finland which say things like ”Tämä ovi on vain henkilökunnan käytössä!” which basically means, ”This door is only for staff use.”  I.e., for ”authorized personnel.  Best choose a different door!

Notice how the nt in kunta has become nn due to the k-p-t consonant gradation rule.