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
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.