Breakdown of En siedä lenkkeilemistä, vaan rakastan kutomista.
ei
no / not (negative verb)
rakastaa
to love
vaan
but rather (after a negative)
kutoa
to knit (also to weave)
sietää
to tolerate
lenkkeillä
to jog
Questions & Answers about En siedä lenkkeilemistä, vaan rakastan kutomista.
Why do both activities end in -mista or -mistä in this sentence?
The verbs sietää (to tolerate) and rakastaa (to love) are emotion verbs. Emotion verbs strongly govern the partitive case. To use an action as the object of these verbs, we first turn the verbs lenkkeillä (to jog) and kutoa (to knit) into nouns using the fourth infinitive -minen. Then, we put those -minen nouns into the partitive case, resulting in lenkkeilemistä and kutomista.
Can I just say rakastan kutoa instead of using the -mista form?
No, saying rakastan kutoa is a direct translation of the English structure "I love to knit" and sounds unnatural in standard Finnish. The verb rakastaa requires a noun or a -minen word as its object. Note that some other common verbs like tykätä (to like) do allow the basic infinitive (tykkään kutoa), which is why this can be confusing!
How do we get the stem lenkkeile- to form lenkkeilemistä?
Lenkkeillä is a type 3 verb. To form a -minen noun, you need the strong vowel stem. The most reliable way to find this is to conjugate the verb in the third person plural (they): he lenkkeilevät. Drop the -vät ending to get the stem lenkkeile-. From there, add -minen to get lenkkeileminen, which becomes lenkkeilemistä in the partitive.
Could I use mutta instead of vaan to mean "but" in this sentence?
No. Because the first clause is a negative statement (En siedä... / I cannot tolerate...), you must use vaan to introduce the contrasting, alternative reality ("but rather" / "but instead"). Mutta is used when simply adding contrasting information that doesn't actively replace a negative statement.
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