Questions & Answers about Voi harmi, juna lähti jo.
I thought "voi" meant "butter" or the verb "can". What is it doing here?
You are right about those meanings, but here voi is simply an exclamation meaning "oh!" or "oh no!". Voi harmi is a very common fixed phrase that translates to "Oh, what a pity!" or "What a shame!".
Why isn't there a word for "what a" in "Voi harmi"?
Finnish doesn't usually translate the English "what a" in exclamations like this. While you can sometimes say Mikä harmi! (literally "What a shame!"), it is much more common to just say Voi harmi! or even just the single word Harmi! to express your disappointment.
Why does the verb "lähteä" (to leave) become "lähti" in the past tense?
For Finnish verbs that end in -ea or -eä (like lähteä), the final two vowels drop completely when you form the past tense, and are replaced by the past tense marker -i. So the stem lähte- simply becomes lähti (he/she/it left).
In English we say "already left", but here "jo" (already) is at the very end. Could I say "juna jo lähti" instead?
Juna lähti jo is the most natural and standard word order. While Juna jo lähti is grammatically understandable, it sounds a bit poetic or puts an unusually heavy emphasis on the word "already". In everyday Finnish, short time adverbs like jo usually come after the verb.
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