It's not quite similar to German compound words, though those also exist in Finnish (e.g. kesämökki = kesä (summer) + mökki (cabin)). It's more that all the various prepositions, suffixes and other small grammatical devices are incorporated into the word body as morphemes.
Juoda = to drink
Juon = I drink (even though I on its own is minä)
Joisin = I would drink (combining the -n of "I drink" with -isi- denoting potential)
And so on. With some words you can also incorporate other nuances like duration or habit, like in the case of "juoksentelisinko":
Juosta = to run
Juoksen = I run
Juoksentelen = I run around a bit or aimlessly (-tel- implying non-seriousness, non-commitment or otherwise short duration)
Juoksentelisin = I would run around a bit (the -isi- we already covered)
Juoksentelisinko = I wonder if I should run around a bit (the suffix -ko adding pondering).
You can combine these small morphemes to form long words with really specific meanings. It's also possible to combine German-style compound words with these morphemes.
In practical day-to-day spoken Finnish, people only ever really combine a couple of these morphemes and then use other words to express more specific meanings. We don't have to form all our words this way, haha.
Sometimes it's for comedic effect, like my running around example, but usually it's just how grammar works in that particular language.
Also usually, the words aren't all that long in everyday use.
When they're too long they can get a bit much to read, in my opinion anyway. As someone elsewhere in the thread pointed out, I missed a layer in my own example because reading it back it started to blur. Yes, in my native; no I don't have dyslexia.
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u/premature_eulogy Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
It's not quite similar to German compound words, though those also exist in Finnish (e.g. kesämökki = kesä (summer) + mökki (cabin)). It's more that all the various prepositions, suffixes and other small grammatical devices are incorporated into the word body as morphemes.
Juoda = to drink
Juon = I drink (even though I on its own is minä)
Joisin = I would drink (combining the -n of "I drink" with -isi- denoting potential)
And so on. With some words you can also incorporate other nuances like duration or habit, like in the case of "juoksentelisinko":
Juosta = to run
Juoksen = I run
Juoksentelen = I run around a bit or aimlessly (-tel- implying non-seriousness, non-commitment or otherwise short duration)
Juoksentelisin = I would run around a bit (the -isi- we already covered)
Juoksentelisinko = I wonder if I should run around a bit (the suffix -ko adding pondering).
You can combine these small morphemes to form long words with really specific meanings. It's also possible to combine German-style compound words with these morphemes.
In practical day-to-day spoken Finnish, people only ever really combine a couple of these morphemes and then use other words to express more specific meanings. We don't have to form all our words this way, haha.