Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.

Too much constant messaging with friends makes me tired.

Breakdown of Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.

• kanssa: with
• liian: too
• minua: me
• kaveri: the friend
• jatkuva: constant
• viestiminen: the messaging
• väsyttää: to tire

Questions & Answers about Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.

Why is liian used here, and what is the difference between liian and liikaa?

Liian is an adverb that modifies adjectives and adverbs and means too (in the sense of excessively).

• liian jatkuva = too constant (excessively constant)

Liikaa is most often an adverb or the partitive form of liika and means too much.

• liikaa viestejä = too many messages / too much messaging

So you use:

• liian

  • adjective/adverb:
  • liian vaikea = too difficult
  • liian nopeasti = too quickly
  • here: liian jatkuva = too constant

• liikaa

  • noun (partitive) or on its own:
  • liikaa aikaa = too much time
  • Syön liikaa. = I eat too much.

In this sentence we are describing how the messaging is (its quality: constant), so liian jatkuva is correct. If you wanted to focus on amount instead, you could say for example:

• Liikaa viestimistä kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.
  (Too much messaging with friends tires me.)

What exactly is jatkuva, and why is it an adjective here instead of the adverb jatkuvasti?

Jatkuva is the adjective form of the verb jatkua (to continue, to be continuous). As an adjective it means continuous, constant.

It modifies the noun viestiminen:

• jatkuva viestiminen = continuous / constant messaging

Because viestiminen is a noun, it needs an adjective (not an adverb) to describe it. Adverbs like jatkuvasti modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, not nouns. So:

• Viestin kavereiden kanssa jatkuvasti.
  (I message my friends constantly. – adverb jatkuvasti modifying the verb viestin)

• jatkuva viestiminen
  (constant messaging – adjective jatkuva modifying the noun viestiminen)

You can’t say “jatkuvasti viestiminen” in this noun phrase; the structure demands an adjective before the noun, so jatkuva is the right form here.

What kind of word is viestiminen, and how is it formed from the verb viestiä?

Viestiminen is a noun derived from the verb viestiä (to message, to communicate). It is the so‑called -minen noun (often called a verbal noun or “4th infinitive” in some grammars).

Formation (very regular):

• verb infinitive: viestiä
• stem: viesti-
• add -minen → viestiminen

Meaning:

• viestiä = to message / to communicate
• viestiminen = messaging, communicating (the activity in general)

This type of noun behaves like a normal noun in grammar:

• nominative: viestiminen
• partitive: viestimistä
• genitive: viestimisen, etc.

In the sentence, Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa is a noun phrase and acts as the subject: Too constant messaging with friends.

Why is viestiminen in the form viestiminen (nominative), not viestimistä or some other case?

Here Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa is the grammatical subject of the sentence. In a neutral, affirmative sentence, the subject appears in the nominative case, so we use:

• viestiminen (nominative) = messaging as the subject

Compare:

• Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.
  Too constant messaging with friends tires me.
  → subject in nominative: viestiminen
  → verb: väsyttää

If viestiminen were an object instead, we might see partitive, for example:

• Inhoan jatkuvaa viestimistä.
  I hate constant messaging.
  → object in partitive: viestimistä (because of inhoan)

Here, however, viestiminen is clearly the “doer” (the cause) in the sentence: it is what tires you, so it must be nominative.

What is happening in kavereiden kanssa? Why is kaverit changed to kavereiden, and what does kanssa do?

Kanssa is a postposition that means with (in the sense of together with).

When you use kanssa, the noun before it goes into the genitive case:

• singular: kaverin kanssa = with a friend / with my friend
• plural: kavereiden kanssa = with friends

So:

• base form (nominative): kaverit = friends
• genitive plural: kavereiden
• plus kanssa → kavereiden kanssa = with (my) friends

Literally, the structure is “friends’ with”, but functionally it just means with friends.

This pattern is the same with other nouns:

• ystävä → ystävien kanssa = with (my) friends
• lapset → lasten kanssa = with the children

Are kavereiden, kaverien, and kavereitten all correct, and do they mean the same thing?

Yes, for the noun kaveri (friend/buddy), Finnish has several acceptable genitive plural forms:

• kavereiden kanssa
• kaverien kanssa
• kavereitten kanssa

All three mean with friends and are understood the same way. The differences:

• kavereiden – very common and neutral
• kaverien – also standard, perhaps a bit more “textbooky” for some speakers
• kavereitten – heard in speech; can sound a bit more colloquial or dialectal depending on region

In everyday language, kavereiden kanssa is a very typical and safe choice.

Why is it väsyttää minua with minua (partitive), and not minut or minä?

The verb väsyttää is one of the so‑called experience verbs in Finnish. It means to make (someone) tired. With these verbs:

• the thing that causes the feeling is the subject (in nominative)
• the person who feels it is in the partitive case

So:

• Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa = subject (what causes the tiredness)
• minua = partitive of minä (the experiencer)

The pattern is:

• X väsyttää minua. = X makes me tired / X tires me.

Other similar verbs:

• Minua huvittaa nauraa. = I feel like laughing.
• Sitä ärsyttää melu. = Noise annoys him/her.

Why partitive (minua) and not minut? Because with these feeling/experience verbs, the experiencer is conventionally in the partitive, even though in English it looks like a direct object (me). Minut väsyttää is not the normal way to say this.

Using minä would make it the subject: Minä väsyttää is just ungrammatical; the verb would also have to change form if minä were the subject (see the next question).

How does väsyttää differ from väsyä and from olla väsynyt?

All three are about tiredness, but they work differently.

1. väsyttää – to tire, to make (someone) tired

   • structure: [cause, subject] + väsyttää + [experiencer in partitive]
   • Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.
     Too constant messaging with friends tires me.

   Often also used without an explicit cause:

   • Minua väsyttää. = I’m tired / I feel tired. (literally: It tires me.)

2. väsyä – to get tired, to become tired
   Here the person is the subject:

   • Väsyn helposti. = I get tired easily.
   • Hän väsyy nopeasti. = He/She gets tired quickly.

3. olla väsynyt – to be tired (state)

   • Olen väsynyt. = I am tired.
   • He ovat väsyneitä. = They are tired.

So roughly:

• Minua väsyttää. ≈ I feel tired (right now / as an experience).
• Väsyn helposti. ≈ I get tired easily (I become tired).
• Olen väsynyt. ≈ I am tired (it is my current state).

Your sentence uses väsyttää because it’s expressing the idea that something makes you tired.

Can the word order change, for example to Minua väsyttää liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, Finnish word order is quite flexible, and your suggested order is grammatical:

• Minua väsyttää liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa.

The basic elements are the same:

• subject: liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa
• verb: väsyttää
• experiencer (partitive object): minua

By moving minua to the beginning, you’re putting extra emphasis on me as the one who is tired:

• Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.
  Neutral emphasis on the activity as the cause.

• Minua väsyttää liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa.
  Slightly more like: It’s me who gets tired from too constant messaging with friends.

In everyday speech, Minua väsyttää ... is also very natural because Finnish speakers often start these “experience” sentences with the experiencer:

• Minua väsyttää.
• Minua ärsyttää tämä melu.

Could you use viestintä instead of viestiminen, as in Liian jatkuva viestintä kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua? Would that be different?

You can say:

• Liian jatkuva viestintä kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.

This is grammatically correct, but there is a nuance:

• viestiminen – the act of messaging/communicating, often suggesting the concrete activity (e.g. chatting, sending messages). It feels quite natural in everyday contexts like friends messaging each other.
• viestintä – communication in a more general or somewhat more abstract/institutional sense (often used about media, organizations, etc.).

In casual talk about messaging with friends, viestiminen or even viestittely feels more colloquial and natural:

• Liian jatkuva viestittely kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.
  (Too much texting/chatting with friends tires me. – very natural in everyday speech)

So:

• viestiminen – good, neutral choice here.
• viestintä – possible, but might sound slightly more formal/abstract in this specific context.

Could this idea be expressed in other natural ways in Finnish, and how would they differ from Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua?

Yes, there are several natural alternatives, each with a slightly different nuance. For example:

1. Minua väsyttää, kun viestin kavereiden kanssa niin jatkuvasti.

   • More explicitly describes the situation (using kun = when).
   • Sounds very natural in spoken Finnish.

2. Liian paljon viestittelyä kavereiden kanssa väsyttää minua.

   • Focus on the amount (too much) rather than continuity.
   • viestittely is colloquial, like texting/chatting.

3. Kavereiden kanssa viestittely väsyttää minua, kun sitä on koko ajan liikaa.

   • More conversational, breaks the thought into two parts; emphasises both all the time and too much.

4. Liian jatkuvasti kavereiden kanssa viestittely väsyttää minua.

   • Uses adverb jatkuvasti modifying viestittely implicitly as an activity.
   • Slightly less neat formally, but understandable and may occur in speech.

Your original sentence is clear and good Finnish, especially in written or slightly more formal style, because it uses a compact noun phrase Liian jatkuva viestiminen kavereiden kanssa as the subject.