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Questions & Answers about Elokuva kestää pitkään.
Why does the verb kestää here mean “to last” instead of “to endure”?
Kestää has two main uses in Finnish:
- “to endure” (transitive) – e.g. Hän kestää kipua (“He endures pain”).
- “to last” (intransitive) – as in Elokuva kestää pitkään, where elokuva is the subject and we describe its duration.
Here we’re using meaning (2), so there’s no direct object.
What part of speech or case is pitkään?
Pitkään is an adverb meaning “for a long time.” It’s derived from the adjective pitkä but functions as a time-adverb, so you don’t mark it with a noun case.
Why not say Elokuva on pitkä (“The movie is long”)?
Both are correct but differ in focus:
- Elokuva kestää pitkään emphasizes how long it runs (its duration).
- Elokuva on pitkä simply states that the film’s length (in e.g. minutes or story) is long, without focusing on the running time.
Can I also say Elokuva kestää kauan?
Yes. Kauan is a more common everyday adverb for duration. Pitkään is slightly more formal or poetic, but both mean “for a long time.”
How do you express a specific duration, like “two hours,” with kestää?
You use a noun phrase in the partitive case:
Elokuva kestää kaksi tuntia.
Here kaksi tuntia (“two hours”) is in the partitive, marking the duration.
Why isn’t there a Finnish equivalent of English “for” before “a long time”?
When you use time-adverbs like pitkään or kauan, they already carry the “for …” meaning. You only need “for”-like marking (partitive) when you use a noun phrase (e.g. kaksi tuntia).
Can I change the word order?
Yes. Finnish allows fairly free word order for emphasis.
- Neutral: Elokuva kestää pitkään.
- Emphasis on duration: Pitkään elokuva kestää.
Meaning stays the same; you just highlight the element you move.
What person and number is kestää?
It’s third person singular present tense. We use it because elokuva is a third-person singular subject.