This article gives you some insight into the less common –Oitse- conjugation variation for verbtype 2, as seen in the forms “minä tupakoin” and “minä tupakoitsen“, which both mean “I smoke”.

1. Typical verbtype 2 conjugation

Finnish has six verbtypes. We use the term “verbtypes” to organize Finnish verbs into groups based on how they are conjugated in, for example, the present tense. It’s a useful tool to grasp the way verbs change when they are conjugated because there are certain regularities that set each verbtype apart from the others. If this concept is new to you, please read more about the verbtypes first!

Verbtype 2 is recognizable by the -da/-dä ending of its infinitive: syödä, juoda, haravoida.

The neutral, common way to inflect these verbs in the present tense is to remove the -da/dä marker and add the personal ending to this stem. For example, the verb syödä will become syön, syöt, syö, syömme, syötte, syövät when conjugated in the present tense.

2. Alternative verbtype 2 conjugation –oitse–

Some verbs ending in -da/dä have a second possible conjugation pattern. This is true for only some verbs, all of which have at least four syllables, such as tupakoida (tu-pa-koi-da) and emännöidä (e-män-nöi-dä). The alternative conjugation only applies to verbs which end in -OidA in the infinitive form (the capital O represents both -oida and -öidä verbs). So, it applies to verbs like haravoida and pullikoida, but not to syödä or uida.

This subgroup of OidA-verbs can be conjugated using the element -Oitse- rather than just plain -Oi- . In the table below, you can find the present, imperfect and conditional conjugation of the verb tupakoida, with both conjugation patterns presented in the 6 personal pronoun forms.

This phenomenon doesn’t affect all possible conjugated verb forms. It can only affect:

Other forms are excluded because they are based on the infinitive verb stem. Thus, there will only be one conjugation for the perfect tense (e.g. olen tupakoinut), the negative imperfect (e.g. emme tupakoineet) and the plural imperative (e.g. tupakoikaa).

3. How common is this form?

Based on a small sample size of actual native Finnish speakers, it seems this form is fairly regularly used in some circles and barely used in others. It also seems to depend on the verb in question: tupakoitsen might seem perfectly reasonable, while haravoitsen sounds strange. As such, you should see it as an interesting quirk that affects a small section of verbtype 2 verbs rather than something you should start actively using.

To find out how many verbs have this Oitse-alternative in addition to the regular Oi-version, I went through the full verb list on Kielitoimiston sanakirja and marked down all verbs with two possible options. For verbs ending in -oida, this came down to 36 verbs out of a total of 696, so 5 % of all verbs ending in -oida had the alternative -oitse- conjugation mentioned. I looked separately at verbs ending in –öidä, where 18 verbs out of 64 had two possible versions, which comes down to 28 %. I don’t want to speculate why -öitse- is so much more common than -oitse-.

4. List of verbs with the –Oitse- alternative conjugation

For all of these verbs, the commonly used version is just -Oi, while the -Oitse form is less common. I have only included verbs that have two possible conjugations mentioned in Kielitoimiston sanakirja.

5. Nouns based on -OidA verbs

In Finnish, it’s common to create nouns out of verbs using the derivational suffix -ja/jä (e.g. opettaa “to teach” and opettaja “teacher”). This derivational element is used to create nouns that express the do-er of the verb’s action.

For nouns based on -OidA verbs, some use the shorter -Oi- conjugation as a base, while others use the longer -Oitse– conjugated as a base. For example, “to smoke” is tupakoida, and a “smoker” is either tupakoija or tupakoitsija.

As you will notice, the longer -OitsijA– form is in some cases more common than the shorter -OijA- form. This is interesting because for the corresponding verbs, the shorter -Oi- form is more commonly used than the long -Oitse- form. Thus, the nouns don’t automatically follow the verb pattern to the letter.

I have made several subsections because there is quite a bit of variation among these nouns.

5.1. Verbs with two noun variants

First, here is a list of verbs which have two possible noun derivatives: one based on the short, and one based on the long conjugation of the verb in question. Take for example the verb luennoida (to lecture). The minä-form of this verb is usually luennoin, but we can also say luennoitsen. Just like we have two conjugations, we also have two nouns: luennoija and luennoitsija, which both mean a lecturer.

I have bolded the most common variant in the table above. In order to discern which noun is more common, I’ve used Kielitoimiston sanakirja‘s definitions. This dictionary takes the approach of only adding the definition of a word in the description of the more common version. The less common version will just refer the reader to the more common word.

5.2. Verbs with only one noun variant: -OitsijA

Second, there is a small collection of verbs that only have one possible noun derivative: –OitsijA but not -OijA according to Kielitoimiston sanakirja.

5.3. Verbs with only one noun variant: -OijA

Lastly, most verbs that only have one possible conjugation (ie. only -oi-, not -oitse-) will only have one noun based on them. They will only have a noun that ends in -OijA, but not one that ends in -OitsijA.

For the second half of the table below, I have decided to include a second noun which ends neither in -OijA nor -OitsijA, when Kielitoimiston sanakirja refers the reader to this other noun. The bolded forms are the more common variant.

Let me know in the comments if this brings up any other questions you might have!

Related posts:

The Finnish Verbtypes Verb-Based Words Ending in Us-Ukse- Words ending in ja/ija – Opiskelija Opettaja The Negative Imperfect – Negatiivinen Imperfekti