Breakdown of Maratonhan on pitkä, mutta selviämme kuitenkin.
olla
to be
mutta
but
pitkä
long, tall
kuitenkin
however
selvitä
to survive
maraton
marathon
Questions & Answers about Maratonhan on pitkä, mutta selviämme kuitenkin.
Could we use silti instead of kuitenkin in this sentence?
Yes, you absolutely could. Both kuitenkin (however / anyway) and silti (nevertheless) express contrast and work perfectly here. Saying mutta selviämme silti would mean almost exactly the same thing.
Why do we use both mutta (but) and kuitenkin (however/anyway) in the same clause?
While it might feel repetitive in English to say 'but we will survive however', combining a conjunction like mutta with an adverbial connector like kuitenkin or silti is very natural in Finnish. Mutta links the two clauses together, while kuitenkin strongly emphasizes the contrast.
What does the -han attached to Maratonhan do?
The -han (or -hän) is a suffix that adds the feeling of 'you know' or 'as we all know'. The speaker is using it to acknowledge a shared fact: we both already know that a marathon is a very long run.
What is the dictionary form of selviämme?
The base verb is selvitä (to survive, to cope, to manage). This is a type 4 verb. To conjugate it, the final -tä drops away, the stem changes to selviä-, and we add the personal ending -mme for 'we', making it selviämme.
Learn Maratonhan on pitkä, mutta selviämme kuitenkin and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free