Breakdown of Mies menetti tajunsa saunassa.
mies
man
sauna
sauna
menettää
to lose (possession, abstract)
taju
consciousness; grasp (of something)
Questions & Answers about Mies menetti tajunsa saunassa.
Why is there no word for "his" before tajunsa?
In standard Finnish, when the third-person owner is the same as the subject of the sentence (the man lost his own consciousness), you must drop the genitive pronoun hänen and only use the possessive suffix on the noun. If you said Mies menetti hänen tajunsa, it would mean the man lost some other person's consciousness!
What case is the object in, and why don't we see a case ending on tajunsa?
As the total object of the verb menettää, the base word taju is in the genitive-accusative case, which normally ends in -n (tajun). However, when you attach a possessive suffix like -nsa, the -n ending is dropped. So, taju + -n + -nsa becomes simply tajunsa.
Why use menetti here instead of another verb for "to lose" like hukkasi?
The verb menettää is used for losing something abstract, intangible, or profoundly significant, such as consciousness, hope, a job, or a life. Hukata is used for misplacing physical objects like keys, while hävitä means to lose a game or to disappear.
Is there a more everyday verb for fainting instead of the phrase menettää tajunsa?
Yes, the verb pyörtyä is a very common one-word equivalent for fainting. Menettää tajunsa is a bit more clinical or dramatic, exactly like the English phrase "to lose consciousness".
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