Breakdown of Mäkin oon pudottanu mun kännykän kerran.
olla
to be
minä
I
kerta
time
kännykkä
the cellphone
pudottaa
to drop
Questions & Answers about Mäkin oon pudottanu mun kännykän kerran.
Why does the word pudottanu not have a -t at the end?
This is a key feature of spoken Finnish (puhekieli)! The past participle ending -nut or -nyt usually loses its final -t in everyday speech. So, the written word pudottanut (dropped) becomes pudottanu.
How does mäkin translate to "I have also"?
Mä is the spoken version of minä (I). The suffix -kin means "also" or "too". When you stick them together, you get mäkin ("I also"). The "have" part actually comes from the next word, oon.
Is oon just spoken Finnish for olen?
Exactly. In puhekieli, olen (I am / I have) is shortened to oon. Since this sentence is in the perfect tense ("I have dropped"), oon acts as the helping verb.
Why is the cellphone (kännykkä) written as kännykän with an -n at the end?
It is the object of the sentence. Because dropping a phone is a completed, whole action, the object takes the genitive-like accusative ending -n. Also notice the consonant gradation: the double kk in kännykkä becomes a single k in kännykän.
Does kerran come from the word kerta (time)?
Yes! To say "once" or "one time", Finnish uses the genitive form of kerta, which is kerran. It undergoes consonant gradation, where the strong rt changes to a weak double rr.
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