Breakdown of Esineet leijuivat minua kohti, ikään kuin painovoimaa ei olisi.
olla
to be
minä
I
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
esine
object
kohti
towards
ikään kuin
as if / as though
painovoima
gravity
leijua
to float / to hover
Questions & Answers about Esineet leijuivat minua kohti, ikään kuin painovoimaa ei olisi.
Why is the verb olisi in the conditional mood here instead of the past tense oli?
The conjunction ikään kuin (as if) sets up a hypothetical or imaginary comparison. Finnish uses the conditional mood (olisi) to show that this is an unreal situation—the objects looked like they were in zero gravity, but gravity still existed.
The first half of the sentence is in the past tense (leijuivat). Why is the conditional verb olisi in the present tense instead of the past conditional (ei olisi ollut)?
When using ikään kuin, you use the present conditional if the imaginary situation is happening at the same time as the main action. Because the imagined lack of gravity was happening at the exact moment the objects floated, we use the present conditional (olisi), regardless of the tense in the main clause.
Could I write kohti minua instead of minua kohti?
Yes, you can. The word kohti (toward) is one of the few directional words in Finnish that can act as both a preposition (coming before the word, kohti minua) and a postposition (coming after the word, minua kohti). In both cases, it requires the partitive case (minua).
Why is painovoimaa (gravity) in the partitive case here?
The phrase painovoimaa ei olisi is a negative existential clause (a sentence stating that something does not exist). In Finnish, the subject of a negative existential sentence must always be in the partitive case.
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