Questions & Answers about Mä auttais sua, mut mä meen kuitenkin töihin.
Why does auttais lack an -n at the end if it means 'I would help'?
In spoken Finnish, it is very common to drop the personal ending -n for the first-person singular (minä) in the conditional mood. So, the standard written minä auttaisin becomes mä auttais.
Why is sua used here instead of sä or sun?
Sua is the shortened spoken form of sinua, which is the partitive case of sinä (you). The verb auttaa (to help) always requires the partitive case for the person being helped, which is why you cannot use the basic form sä.
I see mut here instead of mutta. Does this happen to a lot of conjunctions in spoken Finnish?
Yes! As this lesson covers, everyday function words get heavily shortened in puhekieli. For example, mutta becomes mut, että becomes et, and sitten becomes sit.
Is meen a regular spoken abbreviation for menen?