Ciao, sto imparando un po’ di finlandese su Duolingo perché sono interessato alla Finlandia, ma non riesco a capire perché dovrebbe essere"SU" piuttosto che "Sono" per la traduzione di "Sono" nello screenshot. Un aiuto sarebbe molto apprezzato, saluti.
https://i.redd.it/c1x64b5e3kmd1.jpeg
di itakeyou
12 Comments
onko -> on
oletko -> olen
This translates roughly to “is warm on you?” And you’d reply “it is”.
That is the issue with duolingo, it doesn’t explain grammar. Translations are not always 100%, because grammatical structures differ across languages.
The question is “Onko” and there are only two possible answer structures, a positive one “On” or a negative one “ei ole”. The structure is in the third person, so to say, so the answer is also third person.
As long as you don’t learn the grammar you cannot do these duolingo phrases by logic, you can only memorize them.
Thats like anwsering “Is it hot” with “Yes I am”
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnFinnish/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnFinnish/)
This is a dedicated sub for these questions.
Because the question contains “onko sinulla” (the ko indicates the question), so the answer includes “minulla on” which is shortened to simply “on”
Sinulla on = you have
Minulla on = I have
Olen = I am
In this scenario Finnish people don’t say that they are hot, they say that they have hot. Thus the sinulla on/minulla on situation.
Its one of those cases when word for word translation doesn’t carry the same message.
This translation is a bit misleading as the question doesn’t work in finnish like it does in english
Literal translation from finnish would be something like
Onko sinulla kuuma? -> do you have hot?
On -> yes
If translated directly from english it would be more like
Are you hot? -> Oletko kuuma?
Yes, I am -> Olen
This would be more like asking for someones opinion wether or not they think themselves to be sexy or not.
It’s asking if your body temperature is high, if you are warm. “Olen.” would be “I am.”, while “On.” would be confirming that you have that status, “I do/I have that(high body temp)”. A more literal translation might be “Do you have a high body temperature? -I do”(your first try is wrong since you are essentially saying that you are the high body temperature, it would be correct if the question was “Oletko sinä kuuma”, but “kuuma” when referenced as something you are, and not a status effect, is usually interpreted as hot, sexy, etc.)
EDIT:
You could also just reply “Joo”(yes)
EDIT #2: Also if you have further questions send me a dm and we can have a chat 🙂 Finnish is hard to explain but I’ll give it my best shot.
I suggest you dont compare Finnish to English, you are going to have a hard time otherwise
When you are sweating and feeling hot, you don’t say “I am hot” in Finnish, but instead you say “At me is hot”, and the Finnish conversation directly translated would be “Is at you hot?” – “Is”.
Don’t try to force English logic into Finnish, it doesn’t work. Duolingo is bad for learning Finnish, because it works by essentially forcing English logic to the target language. It works fine for Spanish, German etc., but fails with more distant languages like Finnish.
Literally (non-sensical English) it means.
“Do you have hot?” – “I do (have hot).”
“I am (hot)” or “olen (kuuma)” makes no sense here.
The sinulla tips you off. It means the question is about something you have, not something you are.
“Oletko kuuma” would be literally “are you hot”, and the answer could be “olen” (yes) tai “en ole” (no). But that is about physical hotness. If you ask someone whether they feel warm, it is “onko sinulla…”