5d ago

Päivän sana - älä (don’t)

Alternative forms

elä (dialectal)

Etymology

See ei.

Pronunciation

IPA(key): /ˈælæ/, [ˈælæ]
IPA(key): /ˈælæˣ/, [ˈælæ(ʔ)] (dialectal)
Rhymes: -ælæ
Hyphenation(key): älä

Verb

älä

second-person singular imperative present of ei

Juokse! -> Älä juokse!
Run! -> Do not run!

Interjection

älä

don't!, stop!
(colloquial) wow, really? (expressing positive surprise)
(colloquial, indicates agreement on the preceding statement) tell me about it! I know, right?
Elokuva oli ihan hillitön! — Älä!
The movie was hilarious! — I know!.
(colloquial, sarcastic) you don't say, (oh) really?

Synonyms

ihanko totta

lähde

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5 comments

Is there a difference in pronounciation between the use cases? Like especially what you mention in 2, 3 and 4 compared to 1 (the example). If not, this could be quite confusing
- Finn here. There's no difference in pronounciation, but the colloquial expressions tend to have quite a theatrical expressive spin to them IRL. The context will also be totally different, so I don't see much potential for confusion.
- I am only a student who undertook this project to help learn more Finnish. Hopefully there is someone fluent who reads this and can answer. I will ask my tutor about it.
  
  It's great to have this place to stay motivated! I had my first try a few years back and quickly gave up. Hope I will stick around a bit here :)
  I find it most difficult to remember any vocabulary as there's literally no clues from other languages. Any tips?
  
  I am glad you are finding this helpful. I have been doing Duolingo, mostly because that vihreä pöllö is so abusive if I stop. Sadly there are less than 1500 words in Finnish in the entire lesson plan. I had met some Finns playing an online game and we conversed in Finnish, I still have them on discord to ask them questions. I recently met another Finn in the same game, but he has much less of an online presence.
  I listen to a lot of Korpiklaani, and I met the lead singer back in 2016. I told him the next time I met him I would speak to him in his native tongue. I met him again last year, and sure enough I got to talk a little bit in Finnish to him. The violinist was much more receptive to my broken Finnish however and he even helped me do a Duolingo lesson.
  Sometimes I will wonder what a word is in Finnish, so I look it up. Usually I start with Google Translate, then take what it says and look that Finnish word up on wiktionary. Many times the translations on google translate are very incorrect. The first one I found was looking up porridge, it said it was poromakkara, which is reindeer sausage. More recently I was looking up groundhog, which is metsämurmeli however GT gave the translation of muru.
  I have in the past listened to Finnish radio DJs, and before I purged Meta I followed Suomi Rock on Instagram. I also followed a number of Finnish users on both TikTok and Instagram.
  If you have any suggestions of words, or types of words you would like to see feel free to ask. I am mostly posting words that come up in real life, like the first time I did not post, I had fallen asleep while looking for a word. So I posted väsynyt.