Questions & Answers about Minä nauran, koska olen iloinen.
How do I get nauran from the dictionary form?
The dictionary form is nauraa (to laugh). Since it ends in two vowels, it belongs to Verb Type 1. To make the "I" form, you drop the very last vowel to get the stem naura-, and then add the personal ending for "I", which is -n.
Why is the word minä used before nauran but missing before olen?
In Finnish, the -n at the end of both nauran and olen already means "I". Because the verb ending does the heavy lifting, pronouns like minä (I) and sinä (you) are completely optional. The speaker left out the second minä here to avoid sounding repetitive, which is very natural in Finnish.
Is olen also a Type 1 verb?
No, olen comes from olla (to be), which is an irregular Type 3 verb (verbs ending in two consonants + a vowel). Even though its dictionary form behaves differently and has the special stem ole-, notice that it still uses that exact same -n ending to say "I am".
Why is there a comma before koska?
Finnish has much stricter comma rules than English! When you connect two complete thoughts that each have their own conjugated verb (here: nauran and olen), you almost always must separate them with a comma before the connecting word like koska (because).
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