Breakdown of Mä luulin, et toi tehoste on kallis, mut se ei kuitenkaan ollu.
olla
to be
tuo
that
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
minä
I
mutta
but
kallis
expensive
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
että
that (conjunction)
luulla
to think, to suppose
kuitenkaan
not after all / anyway (in negative sentences)
tehoste
special effect
Questions & Answers about Mä luulin, et toi tehoste on kallis, mut se ei kuitenkaan ollu.
Why do we use kuitenkaan here instead of kuitenkin?
This is the core rule of negative polarity. The word kuitenkin (anyway, after all) must change to kuitenkaan whenever it is used in a negative sentence. Because the second clause uses the negative verb ei, you are required to use kuitenkaan.
Why does the Finnish sentence say on kallis (is expensive) when the English translation says 'was expensive'?
Finnish and English handle the sequence of tenses differently. If the state in the subordinate clause (that the effect is expensive) is true at the exact same time as the main verb (I thought), Finnish keeps it in the present tense. So, even though the thinking happened in the past (luulin), Finnish uses on kallis to show the two things happened simultaneously.
This sentence looks very different from standard textbook Finnish. What are all the shortened words?
This sentence is a great example of spoken Finnish (puhekieli). The standard written equivalents would be minä (mä), että (et), tuo (toi), mutta (mut), and ollut (ollu). At a B2 level, recognizing these extremely common colloquial forms is essential, as this is exactly how a Finnish speaker would say this out loud.
Is it normal to end the sentence at ollu without repeating the word for 'expensive'?
Yes, it is perfectly normal. Just like in English where we can say 'but it wasn't' instead of 'but it wasn't expensive', Finnish allows you to drop the adjective if it is completely obvious from the context. You could say se ei kuitenkaan ollu kallis, but leaving the adjective out sounds more natural here.
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