Turning Activities into Nouns
To talk about an activity as a concept—like "vacuuming" or "knitting"—Finnish uses the fourth infinitive. Form this by adding -minen to a verb's strong stem. When paired with emotion verbs, this noun changes its case depending on the specific verb you use.
Strong Emotions and the Partitive Case
Verbs expressing strong feelings—such as inhota (to loathe), vihata (to hate), rakastaa (to love), and sietää (to tolerate)—govern the partitive case. The activity noun ends in -mista or -mistä.
| I loathe vacuuming. | Minä inhoan imuroimista. |
| He cannot tolerate emptying the dishwasher. | Hän ei siedä tiskikoneen tyhjentämistä. |
Liking and Enjoying: The Elative Case
The verbs pitää (to like) and nauttia (to enjoy) govern the elative case (-sta / -stä). With these, the activity noun ends in -misesta or -misestä.
| We enjoy knitting and listening to audiobooks. | Nautimme kutomisesta ja äänikirjojen kuuntelemisesta. |
| Although I like jogging, I do not like doing yoga. | Vaikka pidän lenkkeilemisestä, en pidä joogaamisesta. |
Expressing Contrasting Preferences
You can easily contrast what you enjoy with what you despise by applying the correct ending for each governing verb.
| We enjoy jogging, but we loathe vacuuming. | Me nautitaan lenkkeilemisestä, mut inhotaan imuroimista. |
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