Verbs 1

As you could see in the lesson basics, finnish verbs conjugate in every person. The personal endings are the same in every word but there are some rules as to what is the stem where the endings are added. These rules divide Finnish verbs in to six types which have small differences. In this lesson we introduce five verbs and their conjugations are shown in the table below.

The verbs to be and not were a bit irregular so we couldn't see what the personal ending for the third person singular is like. The ending is marked by two vowels at the end. If the stem only has one, you double it. And if it has two, you're fine as it is. The form that goes with the negative is the same as the first person form without the personal ending.

A little bit more about the verb types: The next section will give a rough explanation of that little thing you may have notice in the singular and plural third person of tervehtiä and odottaa...
 * Type 1: These verbs end in two vowels, of which the latter is a or ä. (All Finnish verbs in in a or ä). The stem is form by removing the last letter.
 * Type 4: These verbs end in -ata/-ätä, -ota/öta, -uta/-ytä and rarely with -eta/-etä. The stem is formed by removing the t.
 * Type 3: These verbs end in a double consonant before -a/-ä, in this case -lla. The stem is formed by removing the two last letters and and adding e.

Consonant gradation
At the ends of a word, before any personal endings, the letter k, p and t go through a transformation between a strong and a weak form. This change is called consonant gradation. Consonant gradation can go both ways: a strong form can become weak or a weak can become strong. In type 1 verbs where the consonant is strong in infinitive, it changes in the weak form in the present tense in the first and second person of the singular and plural.

A separate page has more on consonant gradation.

1. Sometimes v or j.

2. Pronounced ŋk and ŋŋ.