Joko nielaiset chilin tai häviät kilpailun.
Either you swallow the chili or you lose the competition.
Breakdown of Joko nielaiset chilin tai häviät kilpailun.
tai
or
hävitä
to lose
kilpailu
competition
joko
either
Questions & Answers about Joko nielaiset chilin tai häviät kilpailun.
How do you say 'either... or' in Finnish based on this sentence?
You use the pair joko ... tai. Just like in English, you place joko before the first option and tai before the second. Here, the options are two complete actions: nielaiset chilin (you swallow the chili) and häviät kilpailun (you lose the competition).
Why do both chilin and kilpailun end in '-n'?
They are both total objects, meaning the action is completed. Because the subject is a regular person doing an action ('you'), the total object takes the accusative case that looks exactly like the genitive (ending in -n). You are expected to swallow the entire chili and lose the entire competition. If the action were ongoing or incomplete, you would use the partitive case (chiliä or kilpailua).
I know the verb niellä means 'to swallow'. Why is nielaiset used here instead of nielet?
Nielaista (where nielaiset comes from) is a momentane verb. It is built from the root of niellä but specifically describes a quick, single, instantaneous action ('to gulp down once'). The -aise- ending in the stem is a common way in Finnish to turn a general verb into a quick, one-time action.
What is the dictionary form of häviät and how is it conjugated?