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Lesson Transcript

Hei, minun nimeni on Paula. Hi everybody! I’m Paula.
Welcome to FinnishPod101.com’s “Suomea kolmessa minuutissa”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Finnish.
In the last two lessons, we learned the main usages of the verb olla, which means “to be” in Finnish.
In this lesson, we will see another situation when it is commonly used: when you’re talking about your age.
If someone asks you Kuinka vanha sinä olet? they’re asking “How old are you?”
[slowly] Kuinka vanha sinä olet?
Sometimes miten is used instead of kuinka, but it has the same meaning.
Miten vanha sinä olet?
So how do you answer? This should be no problem at all, since you have learned both the numbers and the olla verb in previous lessons. Let’s put your knowledge to use!
Here are some examples.
“I’m 18” is Minä olen kahdeksantoista.
“I’m 20” is Minä olen kaksikymmentä.
“I’m 35” is Minä olen kolmekymmentäviisi.
“I’m 50” is Minä olen viisikymmentä
and so on.
This sentence follows the exact same pattern as in the previous lessons.
Do you still remember?
Minä olen means “I am”. Olen is the conjugated version of olla.
We learned about numbers back in lessons 6 and 7.
The sentence can be simply used as such, but if you want to emphasize that you are talking about age, there are a few words you can add to the end.
One way is to add the words -vuotta vanha, which literally means “-years old”.
Minä olen kaksikymmentä vuotta vanha.
I am twenty years old.
[slowly]Minä olen kaksikymmentä vuotta vanha.
Another handy word would be vuotias, which basically has the same meaning.
Hän on viisivuotias.
“He is five years old.”
[slowly] Hän on viisivuotias.
Now it’s time for Paula’s Points.
What if you aren’t really that eager to tell your age? Don’t worry, many Finns, especially girls, throw the ball back to the asker by saying arvaa? which means “guess?”. If the guess goes horribly wrong and you still don’t want to reveal your age, you can brush it off by saying Se on salaisuus. That means “It’s a secret.”
In this lesson, we practiced telling your age with the help of olla. Next time we’ll learn one more way to use this very versatile verb when talking about possessions.
I'll be waiting for you in the next Suomea kolmessa minuutissa lesson.
Nähdään pian!

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