Lesson 5 - Nationality

In the following lesson, you will learn how to ask people about their origins, current residence, as well as share your own background and whereabouts.

Verbs throughout the lesson will be marked in orange to help you become more acquainted with them.

Case suffixes throughout the lesson will be marked in red to help you become more acquainted with them.

We will also learn about the verbs "olla", "tulla" and "assuut".

Asking people where they are from

Mistä sie olet pois?

Where are you from?

Certainly this is not the only way to ask people about their origins. Here are some other expressions:

Mistä sie tulet?

Where do you come from?

Mistä sie olet lähtöisin?

Where are you from?

To answer their question, we can say:

Mie olen Ruottista pois?

I am from Sweden.

Tulen Ruottista.

I come from Sweden.

Olen lähtöisin Ruottista.

I am from Sweden.

It is important to note two things here:

1. Kven is a highly inflected language, meaning that different grammatical cases are used to indicate the relationship between a word and the rest of the sentence. These cases are expressed through suffixes, and we will learn how to attach them to different nouns. For now, we will focus on constructing sentences using different model patterns. Consider the following example:

Suomi + -sta =

Finland + from =

Suomesta

from Finland

Notice how the ending "-sta" is not added directly to "Suomi", but to Suome-. So it's not "Suomista" but "Suomesta".

2. In Kven, verbs are conjugated according to personal pronouns. In this lesson, we will learn how to conjugate three verbs.

Olen lähtöisin ~ -sta/stä.

~ Ruija/Norja

~ Kiina

~ Ruotti

~ Tyskä

~ USA

I am from ....

~ Norway

~ China

~ Sweden

~ Germany

~ USA

Olen lähtöisin ~.

~ Suomesta.

~ Taiwanista.

~ Gröönlannista.

~ Amerikasta.

~ Isosta-Britanniasta.

I am from ....

~ Finland

~ Taiwan

~ Greenland

~ United States

~ United Kingdom

Olen ~ -sta/-stä pois.

~ Italia

~ Franska

~ Eesti

I am from ....

~ Italy.

~ France.

~ Estonia.

olla, tulla, assuut

Now let's learn our very first three verbs. All verbs are conjugated according to different personal pronouns. Usually, each conjugation is indicated by a "personal ending" attached to the verb stem. 

For now, memorize these verb conjugations:

tulla

to come (dictionary form)

tulen

I come

mie olen

sie olet

hän / se oon

met olema

tet oletta

het oon

mie tulen

sie tulet

hän / se tullee

met tulema

tet tuletta

het tulhaan

mie asun

sie asut

hän / se assuu

met asuma

tet asutta

het asuthaan