I have written before about the major cases in Finnish and Hungarian. https://languagemiscellany.com/2022/03/how-many-cases-are-there-in-hungarian-and-finnishIn this post, I cover the local / spatial cases in those languages. These cases express such concepts as location, movement to or from a place. Finnish Finish has 6 of these cases, made up of 2 series, each containing 3 cases. Cases…… Continue reading How many cases are there in Hungarian and Finnish? (2)
Tag: Finnish
How many cases are there in Hungarian and Finnish?
The Uralic languages are well known for having a large number of grammatical cases. The two Uralic languages with the most speakers are Hungarian and Finnish. Finnish has 15 cases and Hungarian has between 17 and 27 grammatical cases, depending on how some items are analysed. In contrast, looking only at some examples in languages…… Continue reading How many cases are there in Hungarian and Finnish?
Negating a verb using an auxiliary verb
English, like many other verbs, uses an invariable particle or adverb (not) to turn a positive verb into a negative verb. But Finnish does this differently, using an auxiliary verb for this task. Present tense In the present tense: a positive verb ends in a suffix showing the number (singular / plural) and person (1st…… Continue reading Negating a verb using an auxiliary verb
Good course, bad course
I recently made a surprising discovery. A very good course for independent language learners and a very bad one were both written by the same person. A very good course In the mid 80s, my wife gave me Colloquial Hungarian, by Arthur H Whitney. This was a 1982 reprint of a course book first published…… Continue reading Good course, bad course