Breakdown of Mä tavallaan tiiän, et toi on sinkku.
olla
to be
tuo
that
minä
I
tietää
to know
että
that (conjunction)
sinkku
single
tavallaan
in a way
Questions & Answers about Mä tavallaan tiiän, et toi on sinkku.
Why is tiedän written as tiiän here?
In spoken Finnish, the -d- in the middle of words is often dropped. The written word tiedän first becomes tieän, and then the vowels smooth out to make it easier to say quickly, resulting in tiiän.
Wait, isn't et the verb for 'you don't'?
It can be, but not in this sentence! Here, et is the heavily shortened spoken version of että (that). You have to rely on context to tell the difference between the negative verb et and the colloquial conjunction et.
Where does the word tavallaan (kind of) come from?
It is built from the noun tapa (way or manner). It is put into the adessive case to become tavalla (in a way), and then gets a third-person possessive suffix, creating tavallaan (in its way). In conversation, it is used exactly like the English phrases 'kind of' or 'sort of'.
Why is toi used here instead of tuo, and can it refer to a person?
Toi is the standard spoken version of the demonstrative pronoun tuo (that). While English speakers usually say 'that person' or 'that guy', Finns constantly use tuo and toi to refer to people in casual speech.
Is sinkku a standard Finnish word?
It is a very common spoken word borrowed directly from the English word 'single'. The formal, written Finnish word for an unmarried person is naimaton, but in everyday chats about dating, everyone uses sinkku.
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