Learn Hardcore Finnish: En halua olla kateellinen ystävilleni, vaan oppia iloitsemaan, kun he onnistuvat. - I don’t want to be jealous of my friends, but to learn to be happy when they succeed.

In Finnish, the negative verb en (1st person singular of ei) carries the personal ending, so the main verb that follows stays in its basic form (the so‑called connegative form), without a personal ending.

Affirmative: Haluan olla kateellinen. = I want to be envious.
– halu-a-n → -n is the 1st person singular ending.
Negative: En halua olla kateellinen. = I don’t want to be envious.
– en already shows the person (1st person singular),
– halua appears without -n.

So after en / et / ei / emme / ette / eivät, you never add a personal ending to the main verb: en halua, et halua, he eivät halua, etc., not en haluan, he eivät haluavat, and so on.

Why is it kateellinen ystävilleni and not something like kateellinen ystävistäni or ystävieni?

The choice here is driven by how Finnish expresses “jealous/envious of someone.”

Adjective + allative (-lle) for the person you’re jealous of
With kateellinen (envious), Finnish typically uses the allative case (‑lle) for the person you are envious of:
- kateellinen jollekin = envious of someone
So:
- kateellinen ystävilleni = envious of my friends
  – ystävä (friend) → plural ystävät → stem ystävi-
  - -lle (allative plural) → ystäville
    – -ni is the possessive suffix for “my” → ystävilleni = “to/for my friends”.
Why not ystävistäni?
- ystävistäni = “from / about / out of my friends” (elative plural, + my).
  That doesn’t match the typical pattern after kateellinen, which wants allative.
Why not ystävieni?
- ystävieni means “my friends” (genitive plural with -ni) but doesn’t encode the “of”/“towards” relationship that kateellinen needs. You’d be missing the directional case that marks “jealous of”.

So kateellinen ystävilleni is the natural way to say “envious of my friends” in Finnish.

What exactly does ystävilleni consist of, and how does it mean “to my friends / of my friends” here?

Ystävilleni is made of three parts:

ystävi- – plural stem of ystävä (friend)
-lle – allative case ending (here in its plural form)
-ni – possessive suffix for “my”

So:

ystävä → stem ystävä-
Plural stem: ystävi-
Allative plural: ystävi
- lle → ystäville = “to my friends / to friends”
Add possessive suffix -ni → ystävilleni = “to my friends”.

In this sentence, because of the adjective kateellinen, that allative case ends up corresponding to English “of”:

kateellinen ystävilleni ≈ “envious of my friends”.

Why do we use vaan instead of mutta for “but”?

Both vaan and mutta translate as “but,” but they are used in slightly different situations:

mutta = but / however (neutral contrast)
vaan = but rather / but instead (corrects or replaces something after a negative)

Since the first part is negative:

En halua olla kateellinen… = I don’t want to be envious…

we are saying “not X, but rather Y.” That’s exactly when vaan is used:

En halua olla kateellinen ystävilleni, vaan oppia iloitsemaan…
= I don’t want to be envious of my friends, but (instead) to learn to rejoice…

If you used mutta here, it would sound less like a replacement (“instead of that”) and more like just a contrast. Vaan is the idiomatic choice after a directly negated alternative.

Why is the verb after vaan just oppia, not haluta oppia or haluan oppia?

The verb haluta is understood (elliptical) and doesn’t need to be repeated:

Full form (slightly clunky):
En halua olla kateellinen ystävilleni, vaan haluan oppia iloitsemaan…
Natural form:
En halua olla kateellinen ystävilleni, vaan oppia iloitsemaan…

In English we also often omit repeated verbs:

“I don’t want to be jealous, but (I want) to learn to rejoice.”

So oppia is grammatically dependent on the earlier halua:
En halua [olla…] vaan (haluan) [oppia…].

Why is it oppia iloitsemaan, and not oppia iloita or oppia iloitsemaan kun… without a comma?

Verb + 3rd infinitive in -maan/-mään
Many verbs that express learning, beginning, trying, etc., take the third infinitive in the illative case (‑maan/‑mään) for the following verb:

oppia lukemaan = to learn to read
alkaa tehdä / alkaa tekemään (colloquial) = to start doing
harjoitella puhumaan = to practice speaking

With oppia, the standard structure is:

oppia + [verb in -maan/-mään]

The verb iloita (to rejoice) forms this as:

iloita → iloitsemaan (3rd infinitive illative)

So:

oppia iloitsemaan = “to learn to rejoice.”

Oppia iloita would be ungrammatical in standard Finnish.

Comma before the “kun” clause
Finnish normally separates a main clause and a following kun (“when”) clause with a comma if they’re separate clauses:

…oppia iloitsemaan, kun he onnistuvat.

This is:
Main clause: En halua… vaan oppia iloitsemaan
Subordinate clause: kun he onnistuvat (when they succeed)

So the comma is correct and needed here.

What is the role of kun he onnistuvat? Is kun here “when” or “because”?

In this sentence, kun means “when(ever)”:

…oppia iloitsemaan, kun he onnistuvat.
= …to learn to rejoice when they succeed.

So:

kun
- a finite verb (like onnistuvat) introduces a time clause.
It can also sometimes mean “since/because,” but the context here clearly expresses time: at the times when they succeed.

You could paraphrase:

Aina kun he onnistuvat, haluan iloita.
= “Whenever they succeed, I want to rejoice.”

Why is it he onnistuvat and not he onnistuu?

He is the 3rd person plural pronoun: “they.”

Finnish present tense endings:

hän onnistuu = he/she succeeds (3rd sg, ending -u/u with a long vowel)
he onnistuvat = they succeed (3rd pl, ending -vat/-vät)

So:

he → verb must be in 3rd person plural → onnistuvat, not onnistuu.

Why is it iloitsemaan and not iloinen? Aren’t both related to happiness?

Yes, but they are different parts of speech and mean different things:

iloinen = happy (adjective)
– olla iloinen = to be happy
iloita = to rejoice, to be glad about something (verb)
– iloita jostakin = to rejoice about something

After oppia, you need a verb form, not an adjective:

oppia iloitsemaan = to learn to rejoice (verb in -maan form)
oppia olemaan iloinen = to learn to be happy (verb phrase with adjective)

So changing iloitsemaan to iloinen would change the structure and the meaning.

Why is there a comma before kun in …, kun he onnistuvat?

Because kun he onnistuvat is a separate subordinate clause (a time clause):

Main clause: En halua olla kateellinen ystävilleni, vaan oppia iloitsemaan
Subordinate clause: kun he onnistuvat

In standard Finnish punctuation, a comma is usually placed:

Before a subordinate clause introduced by kun, että, jos, etc., unless the clause is very tightly bound in certain stylistic or special constructions.

So:

…, kun he onnistuvat. is the normal, correct punctuation.

Could the word order be En halua olla ystävilleni kateellinen instead of olla kateellinen ystävilleni?

Yes, that word order is technically possible and understandable:

En halua olla ystävilleni kateellinen.

However:

olla kateellinen ystävilleni (be envious of my friends) is the most natural, straightforward order: verb – adjective – complement.
Moving ystävilleni before kateellinen slightly emphasizes towards my friends:
- “I don’t want to be to my friends envious.” (focus on towards my friends).

It’s not wrong, but the original order sounds more neutral and typical in everyday Finnish.

Is there another way to say this using a verb instead of olla kateellinen?

Yes, Finnish also has the verb kadehtia (to envy):

En halua kadehtia ystäviäni, vaan oppia iloitsemaan, kun he onnistuvat.

Differences:

olla kateellinen jollekin = to be envious of someone (adjective + case)
kadehtia jotakuta = to envy someone (verb + partitive or object)

Both are correct and natural, but the original version with olla kateellinen ystävilleni is slightly more descriptive and common in everyday speech for this kind of sentence.

Could the sentence be Haluan oppia iloitsemaan, kun he onnistuvat, without the negative part?

Yes, grammatically that’s perfectly fine:

Haluan oppia iloitsemaan, kun he onnistuvat.
= I want to learn to rejoice when they succeed.

It just changes the meaning:

Original: En halua olla kateellinen ystävilleni, vaan oppia iloitsemaan, kun he onnistuvat.
→ Contrasts two things: not being envious vs instead learning to rejoice.
Shorter version:
Just states a positive wish, with no reference to envy.

The grammar structure (haluan + oppia + iloitsemaan + kun‑clause) stays the same.