Breakdown of Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon.
Questions & Answers about Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon.
In Finnish, subject pronouns (like minä, sinä) are usually dropped because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.
- kirjoitin ends in -in, which marks 1st person singular past → I wrote.
- So minä is understood from the verb and is normally omitted unless you want to emphasize I (as opposed to someone else).
You can say Minä kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon, but it sounds more emphatic: I (not someone else) wrote the word wrong in the notebook.
Kirjoitin is the 1st person singular past tense of the verb kirjoittaa (to write).
Very simplified:
- Dictionary form (infinitive): kirjoittaa
- Stem for past tense: kirjoitta-
- 1st person singular past ending: -in
So:
- kirjoitta- + in → kirjoittain
(but Finnish simplifies this to) - kirjoitin
Meaning: I wrote.
A few more forms for comparison:
- minä kirjoitan = I write / I am writing (present)
- hän kirjoitti = he/she wrote (past, 3rd sg)
- me kirjoitimme = we wrote
Sanan is the genitive singular form of sana (word), and here it functions as a total object.
In Finnish, the object case changes depending on aspect (complete vs ongoing/partial) and sentence type. Very briefly:
- sana (nominative): can be object in some structures (especially with no element showing completion, or with passive etc.)
- sanan (genitive): total object, often used when the action is completed / one whole thing is affected.
- sanaa (partitive): partial / ongoing / incomplete action, or not affecting the entire thing.
In Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon:
- You finished writing that one word (even though it was wrong).
- The action is seen as complete, and the whole word was written.
- So the object appears in genitive → sanan.
If you said:
- Kirjoitin sanaa – this would sound like I was writing a word (process, not completed, or not focusing on the whole finished result).
Väärin is an adverb meaning incorrectly / wrongly.
- väärä = an adjective: wrong, incorrect (describes a noun)
- väärä sana = a wrong word
- väärin = adverb: wrongly / incorrectly (describes how something is done)
- kirjoitin väärin = I wrote (it) incorrectly
So in Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon, väärin tells us how you wrote the word.
Finnish usually forms many adverbs from adjectives with -sti (e.g. nopea → nopeasti), but väärin is a common irregular adverb form. väärästi is not used.
Vihkoon is vihko (notebook) in the illative case, which often means into / in(to) something.
- vihko = notebook (basic form)
- vihkoon = into the notebook / in the notebook (illative case)
Formally:
- vihko + on → vihkoon
The vowel lengthens: o + o → oo.
The illative is used for movement or direction into something but is also used in many fixed ways where English would just say in.
Here, kirjoittaa vihkoon is the normal way to say write in a notebook, even if there is no strong sense of physical movement.
Yes, vihkossa is possible, but the nuance changes.
- vihkoon = illative → literally into the notebook, but idiomatically used for writing in a notebook.
- vihkossa = inessive → in the notebook (location)
In practice:
Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon
= I wrote the word incorrectly in the notebook
(normal, idiomatic way to talk about writing something down in a notebook)Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkossa
= sounds more like While I was in the notebook or in the notebook, the word was written wrong – it’s more about location than the act of writing into it. This is unusual for the intended meaning.
So for writing into some paper, notebook, exercise book, diary, etc., Finnish typically uses the illative: paperiin, vihkoon, vihkoon vihkoon, etc.
Yes, Finnish word order is flexible, but it affects emphasis and naturalness.
All of these are grammatical:
Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon.
– Neutral; slight focus on where it was written (vihkoon at the end) or simply a standard order.Kirjoitin sanan vihkoon väärin.
– Focus shifts a bit more to väärin at the end: I wrote the word in the notebook, and that was wrong / incorrectly.Kirjoitin väärin sanan vihkoon.
– Emphasis more clearly on väärin (the manner) first: I incorrectly wrote the word in the notebook.
All three are understandable. The original sentence is probably the most neutral and typical-sounding, but choosing what you put last is one way to highlight it in Finnish.
Finnish does not have articles like a/an or the. Definiteness and indefiniteness are usually clear from context, word order, or additional words, not from articles.
So:
- sanan can mean:
- the word, a word, or that word, depending on context.
- vihkoon can mean:
- into the notebook, into a notebook, etc.
If you need to be explicit, you use other words:
- siihen vihkoon = into that notebook
- yhteen vihkoon = into one notebook
- tähän vihkoon = into this notebook
No, väärästi is not used in standard Finnish. The correct adverb is väärin.
So:
- väärä (adj) → väärin (adv), not väärästi.
Correct alternatives:
- Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon.
- Kirjoitin sanan vihkoon väärin.
But not:
- ✗ Kirjoitin sanan vihkoon väärästi.
You would use the perfect tense:
- Olen kirjoittanut sanan väärin vihkoon.
Breakdown:
- olen = I have (auxiliary verb, 1st sg)
- kirjoittanut = past participle of kirjoittaa → written
- sanan = the word (object, genitive)
- väärin = incorrectly
- vihkoon = in/into the notebook
Meaning: I have written the word incorrectly in the notebook, with some present relevance (e.g., you have just realized it, or it’s still in the notebook now).
Yes:
- vihkooni = into my notebook
- vihko (notebook) + -on (illative) + -ni (my)
So:
Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkoon.
= I wrote the word incorrectly in a/the notebook (whose notebook is unspecified).Kirjoitin sanan väärin vihkooni.
= I wrote the word incorrectly in my notebook.
Grammatically they are the same pattern; vihkooni just adds the possessive meaning.