juoda ('to drink') | Finnish Grammar

Juoda ("to drink") is the exact twin of syödä: a Type 2 verb whose infinitive adds -da onto the long stem juo-. There is no consonant gradation, so every form is built on that one stem, and it shows the same two Type 2 signatures — the ending-less third person (juo, never *juoo) and the contracting past (juo → joi). If you know syödä, you already know juoda; the only thing to memorise separately is which vowel survives the contraction.

Principal parts

Infinitive	Present 1sg	Present 3sg	Past 3sg	Past participle
juoda	juon	juo	joi	juonut

Core conjugation

Person	Present	Past	Conditional	Perfect
minä	juon	join	joisin	olen juonut
sinä	juot	joit	joisit	olet juonut
hän	juo	joi	joisi	on juonut
me	juomme	joimme	joisimme	olemme juoneet
te	juotte	joitte	joisitte	olette juoneet
he	juovat	joivat	joisivat	ovat juoneet
negative	en juo	en juonut	en joisi	en ole juonut

The imperative is juo! (2sg) and juokaa! (2pl); negative älä juo / älkää juoko. The passive is present juodaan, past juotiin, perfect on juotu, conditional juotaisiin; negatives ei juoda, ei juotu. The full set of non-finite and rarer forms follows the Type 2 model exactly.

Juon kahvia heti herättyäni, muuten en toimi.

I drink coffee the moment I wake up, otherwise I can't function.

Joimme illalla vain vettä, koska ajoimme kotiin.

In the evening we drank only water, because we were driving home.

💡

The past is the trap: 3sg joi and 1sg join, not *juoi / *juoin. The diphthong uo collapses to plain o before the past marker -i-. Say juon → join out loud a few times so the shift feels automatic.

The object: drinks are (usually) partitive

Drinks are typically mass — coffee, water, milk, beer — so they take the partitive object by default. There is no natural endpoint to "drinking water", so the case that marks an unbounded quantity is the right one.

Juotko teetä vai kahvia?

Do you drink tea or coffee?

Hän ei juo alkoholia lainkaan.

He doesn't drink alcohol at all.

When you drink a bounded amount — a glass, a cup, a bottle — the container becomes a total object and the liquid stays partitive as its substance:

Join lasin maitoa ennen nukkumaanmenoa.

I drank a glass of milk before going to bed.

Juo edes kupillinen vettä, ennen kuin lähdet lenkille.

Drink at least a cup of water before you go for a run.

Here lasin and kupillinen are the countable, finished thing; maitoa and vettä stay partitive because they name the substance, not a bounded portion of it.

Idioms and useful collocations

Juodaan kahvit ja jatketaan sitten palaveria.

Let's have our coffee and then continue the meeting.

The plural total object juoda kahvit ("have one's coffee") treats the coffee break as a bounded event. Other set phrases: juoda malja ("drink a toast", nostetaan malja! "let's raise a glass"), juoda itsensä humalaan ("drink oneself drunk"), and the colloquial juoda kännit (informal, "get plastered"). Figurative juoda jonkun terveydeksi means "to drink to someone's health".

Common Mistakes

❌ Hän juoo liikaa kahvia.

Incorrect — the Type 2 3sg is bare: juo, not *juoo.

✅ Hän juo liikaa kahvia.

He drinks too much coffee.

❌ Juoin eilen liikaa.

Incorrect — the past contracts the diphthong: join, not *juoin.

✅ Join eilen liikaa.

I drank too much yesterday.

❌ Juon vesi aamulla.

Incorrect — a mass liquid takes the partitive: vettä, not the nominative vesi.

✅ Juon vettä aamulla.

I drink water in the morning.

❌ Emme juoneet mitään kahvin.

Incorrect — a negated object is partitive: kahvia, not the total form kahvin.

✅ Emme juoneet mitään, edes kahvia.

We didn't drink anything, not even coffee.

Key Takeaways

Stem juo-, no gradation — the mirror image of syödä.
3sg is bare juo; the past is joi / join (the diphthong uo → o before -i-).
Drinks are mass, so the object is partitive by default: juoda kahvia, vettä, olutta.
A bounded amount = total container + partitive substance: juoda lasin maitoa.

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