This page is all about the verb antaa. On its own, it only has two common meanings (to give and to allow), but it’s used in a wide variety of commonly used phrases where it has a particular meaning.

1. To give something to someone

In these sentences, you will generally have both an object and a recipient. The object will follow the regular object rules. The recipient will be inflected in the allative case (-lle).

Just like in English, the verb antaa can be used for giving something both temporarily and permanently to someone. One way to make this difference clear in Finnish is by using the translative case (-ksi). Word order is fairly free for these sentences.

2. To allow someone to do something

This special sentence construction (permessiivirakenne) expresses that someone is being allowed by someone else to do something. It requires the genitive, followed by the infinitive of the verb.

What is the most interesting about this construction is that – even in negative sentences – you will use the genitive!

3. Phrases with the verb antaa

The verb antaa appears in a large amount of phrases. I’ve listed them below more or less according to their meaning.

If you look up these words in a Finnish dictionary, you will come across some abbreviations which are meant to help you with the rections of these phrases. I have not used those abbreviations because they are somewhat confusing. As such, here are the official abbreviations and my replacements for them:

• antaa valtaa jllek “to give power to something”
  → jllek means jollekin “to something”
  → I have replaced this with asialle “to the thing”
• antaa jklle vapaat kädet “to give someone free reign”
  → jklle means jollekulle “to someone”
  → I have replaced this with hänelle “to him”
• antaa selkoa jstak “to explain something”
  → jstak means jostakin “of/from/about something”
  → I have replaced this with asiasta “of/from/about the thing”

In addition, many of these phrases have an object. When the object always appears in the partitive, you will find the words inflected in the partitive in my list. When the object follows the normal total object rules, I have given the basic form. For example:

• In the table below, antaa selkoa uses the partitive, so it will always have the partitive case:
  annan selkoa, anna selkoa, älä anna selkoa, annetaan selkoa
• In contrast, antaa selkeä viesti has the basic form, so it will follow the object rules:
  annan selkeän viestin, anna selkeä viesti, älä anna selkeää viestiä, annetaan selkeä viesti

Alternatives to the verb antaa

The phrases above are all commonly used and really good to get yourself acquainted with. However, if you want to enrich your own language use, many of these phrases can be replaced with an actual verb. Sure, you can say antaa ruokaa “to give food”, but you could just as well use ruokkia lintuja “to feed the birds” or syöttää vauvaa “to feed the baby”.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid the verb antaa in all these phrases. It’s very much like in English: there are situations where you are more prone to say “I give” (“I kiss” vs “I give a kiss”; “I protect” vs “I give protection”; “to command” vs “to give an order”). The following table matches some of these antaa-phrases with their respective verbs.

That’s it for the verb antaa! I hope this article contained something interesting to each of you!

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