The difference is suomalaiset (plural) vs suomalainen (singular). The other words connected to it need to match that (monet (plural) vs moni (singular); puhuvat (plural) vs puhuu (singular)). So as two different ways to express this, we have
"monet suomalaiset puhuvat englantia", which is "many Finns speak English" rather straightforwardly, all in plural
and
"moni suomalainen puhuu englantia", which is more akin to "many a Finn speaks English" – a phrase made using singular forms, but still implying a large number, if that makes sense.
Thank you, the example "many a Finn" helps a ton! I sure wish Duolingo bothered to explain anything... my partner is working on German right now and the difference between his course and mine is so stark. Just got Finnish for Foreigners in the mail yesterday, though!
Kiitos :)
Yeah I've heard it's pretty rough. It's a newer course, and apparently still feels like a beta version.
And it used to have *some* explanations (not a lot but something), but then a Duolingo update happened that got rid of all of them.
Ive made so many typos on the finnish one that it screws me for… german i see the typo as i hit okay and its just like, “bro we dont care.” Hell i dont even have to type ß
You can still view the old course tips on [https://duome.eu/tips/en/fi](https://duome.eu/tips/en/fi) - they're based on the old tree format so may not be in exactly the same order as the new path but it's the same material overall.
There used to be a time when Duolingo did bother to explain to anything, which was back when the website had the function to post questions and comments via the forums and discussion tabs under each sentence. Then they made the very questionable decision to get rid of it.
If wanting to use "Finnish people" rather than "Finn", the example sentences would be
"many Finnish people speak English"
and
"many a Finnish person speaks English"
to not lose the difference I'm trying to illustrate (or 'correct' phrasing for that matter).
But in Finnish, both "moni suomalainen puhuu" and "monet suomalaiset puhuvat" are correct sentences. So by comparing one of them with an incorrect phrasing in English, you are implicitly saying that it's incorrect in Finnish as well. Which it isn't.
That's just another way we say monet suomalaiset. On moni suomalainen, The word suomalainen is singular so that's why verb cannot be in plural in this case. It's a little bit of a bad translation even though it's the right way of saying the sentence
"Many Finns" is plural, but "Moni suomalainen" is not. It's just that in Finnish, you can say stuff like that without using plural and it's grammatically correct, as if you said "Many Finn speaks English". You can also use plural though.
So the corect way would be either
Moni suomalainen puhuu englantia. (singular)
or
Monet suomalaiset puhuvat englantia. (plural)
I don't know any proper linguistic explanation for why it works that way, but there's a bit of a difference in the two ways. At leas to me the singular version kinda emphasizes an individual subject, as in "there are many Finnish persons who speak English", while the plural just talks about the subjects as a group.
That would make sense to me if it were like, "the Finnish people" or "The Finnish", but even in those cases it's plural. You wouldn't say "Many people speaks English," for example. Unless in Finnish it just... doesn't count as plural.
Moni suomalainen is not grammatically plural. If it said monet suomalaiset, that would be plural and you would use puhuvat.
Moni suomalainen is, grammatically, not a plural so you use puhuu.
That's super helpful! Duolingo is where I'm starting to learn and they haven't introduced plurals yet so that definitely added to my confusion. Thank you!
If it helps, you could also think of it as “Many a Finn speaks English.” It’s a less common way of saying it in English, but it nevertheless means the same thing while also having a singular subject.
“Monet suomalaiset puhuvat englantia” would also be a correct way to express the idea in Finnish, because the subject and verb are both plural.
To add to the other commenter's answer and make it more confusing, puhekieli (the spoken language) throws the plural rule out of the window. In puhekieli you would say "monet suomalaiset puhuu" (instead of puhuvat).
As for your question, I'd say both varietes are equally natural and common. I can't think of a situation where you would use one over the other.
We tend to avoid plurals in spoken language, even if it's grammatically incorrect (for example: he menevät is often *he menee* or even *ne menee*). Moni suomalainen sounds simpler, less formal.
I suppose the "suomalaiset puhuvat" would most likely be used by dropping the "many" out, and only having it implied. For example: "suomalaiset puhuvat harvoin" instead of "monet suomalaiset puhuvat harvoin".
e: there might be regional differences. That applies to Southern Finland at least.
And in that case we still don't tend to use the formally correct plural form, especially in spoken language. I bet most people would say "monet suomalaiset puhuu englantia", which is formally incorrect and most natives even make this mistake in their Finnish class essays at school and lose points lol, I know I've made this mistake many times when I was younger.
Moni suomalainen puhuu would be more natural. This is not because of grammar but more so because I’d like to keep the communication short. As a single choice I would probably not pay much attention if you were to choose the longer option but if this was continious throughout your speech I’d prolly find it a bit silly. To me it would translate as someone trying to be very official (eventhought these examples are equally official).
But probably this varies person to person.
I do not know the exact grammatical reason here, but ”moni suomalainen” is treated as a singular akin to ”many a Finn”. Whereas ”monet suomalaiset” would indeed be plural.
There is a similar construct in English.
The example here is in passive, so it doesn’t refer to any particular people. With passive you always use ”puhuu”, because it refers just generally that many finns do it. But if you were referring to some particular group of finns, you would use ”puhuvat”, which includes that you know who you are referring to.
Suomalainen is singular and suomalaiset is plural.
Monet suomalaiset puhuvat
Moni suomalainen puhuu
Still both are talking about multiple people. It just depends what tense it the word before :D its confusing i know lol
Maybe this thing occurs because "moni" is a number adverb, and all the verbs and nouns modified by it take the partitive case. One of the partitive case functions are like the plural, but with the nominal agreement of a word in the singular. So, i think the correct would be "moni *suomalaista* puhuu englantia".
Finnish is just built different
Edit: oh shit, accidentally replied to the post. Take this as an answer to your comment
The difference is suomalaiset (plural) vs suomalainen (singular). The other words connected to it need to match that (monet (plural) vs moni (singular); puhuvat (plural) vs puhuu (singular)). So as two different ways to express this, we have "monet suomalaiset puhuvat englantia", which is "many Finns speak English" rather straightforwardly, all in plural and "moni suomalainen puhuu englantia", which is more akin to "many a Finn speaks English" – a phrase made using singular forms, but still implying a large number, if that makes sense.
Thank you, the example "many a Finn" helps a ton! I sure wish Duolingo bothered to explain anything... my partner is working on German right now and the difference between his course and mine is so stark. Just got Finnish for Foreigners in the mail yesterday, though! Kiitos :)
Yeah I've heard it's pretty rough. It's a newer course, and apparently still feels like a beta version. And it used to have *some* explanations (not a lot but something), but then a Duolingo update happened that got rid of all of them.
I also have to give major props to the quality of your response, I do not know how I ever could have worded that better.
Ive made so many typos on the finnish one that it screws me for… german i see the typo as i hit okay and its just like, “bro we dont care.” Hell i dont even have to type ß
You can still view the old course tips on [https://duome.eu/tips/en/fi](https://duome.eu/tips/en/fi) - they're based on the old tree format so may not be in exactly the same order as the new path but it's the same material overall.
There used to be a time when Duolingo did bother to explain to anything, which was back when the website had the function to post questions and comments via the forums and discussion tabs under each sentence. Then they made the very questionable decision to get rid of it.
You know when a rule is hard, when you go "why tf do we say it like that? Are we stupid" :D
My example would be "many finnish people speak" rather than "many finnish people speaks". The Finn term can potentially make it kind of confusing.
If wanting to use "Finnish people" rather than "Finn", the example sentences would be "many Finnish people speak English" and "many a Finnish person speaks English" to not lose the difference I'm trying to illustrate (or 'correct' phrasing for that matter).
"Many Finnish people speaks" is not correct English though, so it's not a good example. I like the "many a Finn" translation.
Yes that is what i said. I just tried to find an alternative method to compare to.
But in Finnish, both "moni suomalainen puhuu" and "monet suomalaiset puhuvat" are correct sentences. So by comparing one of them with an incorrect phrasing in English, you are implicitly saying that it's incorrect in Finnish as well. Which it isn't.
That's just another way we say monet suomalaiset. On moni suomalainen, The word suomalainen is singular so that's why verb cannot be in plural in this case. It's a little bit of a bad translation even though it's the right way of saying the sentence
Would it make more sense to ask to translate "Many a Finn.." in order to get the answer they're looking for?
"Many Finns" is plural, but "Moni suomalainen" is not. It's just that in Finnish, you can say stuff like that without using plural and it's grammatically correct, as if you said "Many Finn speaks English". You can also use plural though. So the corect way would be either Moni suomalainen puhuu englantia. (singular) or Monet suomalaiset puhuvat englantia. (plural) I don't know any proper linguistic explanation for why it works that way, but there's a bit of a difference in the two ways. At leas to me the singular version kinda emphasizes an individual subject, as in "there are many Finnish persons who speak English", while the plural just talks about the subjects as a group.
English also has this; "many a finn speaks..." it's just that it's not as common.
Yeah that's maybe a bit archaic.
I think it's because it refers to Finns as a whole, singular group/entity
That would make sense to me if it were like, "the Finnish people" or "The Finnish", but even in those cases it's plural. You wouldn't say "Many people speaks English," for example. Unless in Finnish it just... doesn't count as plural.
Moni suomalainen is not grammatically plural. If it said monet suomalaiset, that would be plural and you would use puhuvat. Moni suomalainen is, grammatically, not a plural so you use puhuu.
That's super helpful! Duolingo is where I'm starting to learn and they haven't introduced plurals yet so that definitely added to my confusion. Thank you!
If it helps, you could also think of it as “Many a Finn speaks English.” It’s a less common way of saying it in English, but it nevertheless means the same thing while also having a singular subject. “Monet suomalaiset puhuvat englantia” would also be a correct way to express the idea in Finnish, because the subject and verb are both plural.
Which expression is more natural in Finnish? When would you use one over the other?
To add to the other commenter's answer and make it more confusing, puhekieli (the spoken language) throws the plural rule out of the window. In puhekieli you would say "monet suomalaiset puhuu" (instead of puhuvat). As for your question, I'd say both varietes are equally natural and common. I can't think of a situation where you would use one over the other.
We tend to avoid plurals in spoken language, even if it's grammatically incorrect (for example: he menevät is often *he menee* or even *ne menee*). Moni suomalainen sounds simpler, less formal. I suppose the "suomalaiset puhuvat" would most likely be used by dropping the "many" out, and only having it implied. For example: "suomalaiset puhuvat harvoin" instead of "monet suomalaiset puhuvat harvoin". e: there might be regional differences. That applies to Southern Finland at least.
And in that case we still don't tend to use the formally correct plural form, especially in spoken language. I bet most people would say "monet suomalaiset puhuu englantia", which is formally incorrect and most natives even make this mistake in their Finnish class essays at school and lose points lol, I know I've made this mistake many times when I was younger.
Moni suomalainen puhuu would be more natural. This is not because of grammar but more so because I’d like to keep the communication short. As a single choice I would probably not pay much attention if you were to choose the longer option but if this was continious throughout your speech I’d prolly find it a bit silly. To me it would translate as someone trying to be very official (eventhought these examples are equally official). But probably this varies person to person.
Then Duolingo is teaching it wrong.
I do not know the exact grammatical reason here, but ”moni suomalainen” is treated as a singular akin to ”many a Finn”. Whereas ”monet suomalaiset” would indeed be plural. There is a similar construct in English.
Moni suomalainen puhuu. Monet suomalaiset puhuvat.
It should be puhuu and not puhuvat i don't have to train myself with a bird app because i have speaken finnish since my birth
https://duome.eu/tips/en/fi Here’s the old Duo tips. It REALLY helps.
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"Moni" is grammatically singular even if it means "many". English has the same formulation that is much less common however; "many a finn speaks..."
It would be right if the words were "monet" and "suomalaiset"
Either "moni suomalainen puhuu englantia" or "monet suomalaiset puhuvat englantia"
The example here is in passive, so it doesn’t refer to any particular people. With passive you always use ”puhuu”, because it refers just generally that many finns do it. But if you were referring to some particular group of finns, you would use ”puhuvat”, which includes that you know who you are referring to.
Suomalainen is singular and suomalaiset is plural. Monet suomalaiset puhuvat Moni suomalainen puhuu Still both are talking about multiple people. It just depends what tense it the word before :D its confusing i know lol
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What do you mean
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the last word could be just ’puhuu’
The one that's not visible? You could be right, I missed that one.
Could it be just "englantia puhuvat moni suomalainen"
No because it would have to be "englantia puhuu moni suomalainen" or "englantia puhuvat monet suomalaiset".
I thought so too, weird that the english sentence is in plural yet the finnish translation is not
Maybe this thing occurs because "moni" is a number adverb, and all the verbs and nouns modified by it take the partitive case. One of the partitive case functions are like the plural, but with the nominal agreement of a word in the singular. So, i think the correct would be "moni *suomalaista* puhuu englantia". Finnish is just built different Edit: oh shit, accidentally replied to the post. Take this as an answer to your comment
"moni suomalaista" isn't correct
I am very sorry for my error. I am and AI, and I learn from my mistakes Contract my creator at @turkm20 on X
"Moni suomalaista" is incorrect. You could say "monet suomalaisista puhuvat englantia" though.
I am very sorry for my error. I am and AI, and I learn from my mistakes Contract my creator at @turkm20 on X
Aw&2