Thursday, July 26, 2018
to go
to go
One thing that I have always found sticky about Estonian is how to translate to go. Estonian has two basic verbs to express the meaning behind the English verb go. These two verbs are minema and k�ima. These are the -ma forms, the -da forms being minna and k�ia. See this post and this post if you are unsure of this distinction. We will start with the verb minema.
Formation Present
The conjugated form of minema is tricky for the beginner of Estonian because the stem of the verb is l�he, and not *mine as would otherwise be expected. This can be explained by a study of language change in Estonian that need not concern us here. Thus, the present indicative of minema is:
Singular: ma l�hen, sa l�hed, ta l�heb
Plural: me l�heme, te l�hete, nad l�hevad
The verb minema necessitates that use of the illative case (an inner locative case, characterised by the ending -sse and denoting movement into; see this post) or the allative case (an outer locative case, characterised by the ending -le and denoting movement towards).
Examples
Ma l�hen Tartust Tallinnasse. I am going from Tartu to Tallinn.
Very often however, Estonians prefer to use the short form of the illative.
T�druk l�heb kooli. The girl is on her way to school.
Me l�heme kinno. We are on our way to the cinema.
The verb minema can also be used in conjunction with another verb as in the example below. In this case the second verb takes the -ma infinitive.
Ma l�hen jalutama. Im off for a walk.
Formation Past
The simple past form of minema has a similar but different stem from the present. You would expect the past form to be ma l�he/si/n. However, the stem is instead l�k which combines with the past infix -si- to become l�ksi-.
Singular: ma l�ksin, sa l�ksid, ta l�ks
Plural: me l�ksime, te l�ksite, nad l�ksid
Pere l�ks kolmap�eval P�rnusse. The family left for P�rnu on Wednesday.
Ema l�ks t��le. Mother went to work.
Lapsed l�ksid poodi. The children went to the shop.
Minema and K�ima
Now, the thing to realise about minema is that is signifies movement toward/ into an object or a place without reference to the return journey. This leads to trouble for the learner when they wish to translate the process of habitual going or to say that they travelled somewhere and have since returned. Before we illustrate this distinction, let us first take a look at the conjugation of the verb k�ima. You will be happy to know that its formation is much more regular than that of minema.
Present (k�i- = stem)
Singular: ma k�in, sa k�id, ta k�ib
Plural: me k�ime, te k�ite, nad k�ivad
Past (k�i/si- = stem)
Singular: ma k�isin, sa k�isid, ta k�is
Plural: me k�isime, te k�isite, nad k�isid
Before we take about the distinction between the use of minema and k�ima it should be noted that whereas minema takes the illative (-sse) or allative case (-le), k�ima takes the inessive (-s) or adessive case (-l).
Examples
Ma l�hen kooli. I am on my way to school.
Ma k�in koolis. I go to school (regular occurrence) = I attend school.
Isa l�ks t��le. Father went to work.
Isa k�is t��l. Father went to work and returned.
Pere l�ks Tartusse. The family left for Tartu.
Pere k�is Tartus. The travelled to Tartu and came back again.
That is why its okay to write someone a note on the fridge where you say ma l�ksin linna I left for town but when you return and see that person again you must say ma k�isin linnas Ive been to town and back again.
Hopefully that goes some small way to explaining how to to translate to go in Estonian. It takes a while to get into your head and even after a few years I still slip up now and then, so don�t worry if you are having touble with it, especially when you mix in the case change as well. Itll all come with time, I hope!
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Sorry that it has been so long since my last post. Hopefully there will only be a short gap between this and the next post.
