Wednesday, December 4, 2013

"Names of the days of the week"


Hi everybody!

In todays lesson we will be learning how to say the names of the days of the week in Estonian.

The names of the days of the week:

Monday - Esmaspäev
Tuesday - Teisipäev
Wednesday - Kolmapäev
Thursday - Neljapäev
Friday - Reede
Saturday - Laupäev
Sunday - Pühapäev


Word PÄEV means DAY
Day - Päev

The first 4 days will be easy to remember because they literally give you the order of the days.

Esmaspäev
Esmas / päev
First - esimene 

Teisipäev 
Teisi / päev
Second - teine

Kolmapäev
Kolma / päev
Third - kolmas

Neljapäev
Nelja / päev
Forth - Neljas

Obviously Friday is such special day that we don't even bother to call it a day XD - reede. I have no idea why it is like that :). If anyone know's let me know ;). 

Pühapäev
Püha - holy, we also call celebrative holidays - püha
Jõulupüha - Christmas 

More useful vocabulary:

week - nädal
today - täna
tomorrow - homme
yesterday - eile
the day after tomorrow - ülehomme
the day before yesterday - üleeile
workday - tööpäev
restday - puhkepäev


Example sentences:

1. Today is Monday. - Täna on esmaspäev
Täna - today
is - on 

2. Tomorrow is Tuesday. - Homme on teisipäev. 
Homme - Tomorrow

3. Yesterday was Sunday. - Eile oli pühapäev. 
Eile - Yesterday

4. The day before yesterday was a fun day. - Üleeile oli tore päev. 
 Üleeile - the day before yesterday
oli - is in past tense
tore - fun



* In Estonian we do not write the days of the week with the capital letter, unless it is in the start of a sentence. Also for further information, Estonian language generally doesn't like capital letters. In English people tend to use them a lot but in estonian it's probably safer not to use capital letters, unless it's a name (person, city, country [however the people in the country like Estonian would be lower case - eestlane, same with he languages eesti keel] place etc.)

** Estonian language doesn't have future tense. It is expressed by using relevant words like "tomorrow".  Great example is a sentence that is often used in songs or other places similar. Oli, on ja jääb.  It was, it is and it stays.   Oli (was) is past tense of on (is), jääb comes from a word jääma - to stay and could be used anywhere, there is no future tense the change comes from TA JÄÄB - he/she/it stays.  However it will give us the idea of eternity.

Hope that explanation will help you to understand how the language works better :)



Good luck!








9 comments:

  1. In estonian is there a general way of conjugating verbs? I've been looking for a guide on how to do this (he/she runs, we run, they run, ect), but haven't been able to find this anywhere. It'd be a really helpful if you took the time to put something like that together and maybe teach some simple vocabulary such as some pronouns (he, she, it, they, we, ect.). Thanks! Your videos and blogs have been really helpful so far!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is a general way of verb conjugation, however as with every rule, there are plenty of examples. Instead of prepositions Estonian has suffixes. Let's use two examples: töötama (to work) and teretama (to greet). The -ma suffix is used sort of as a nominative case. To make the other forms of these words, remove the suffix -ma and substitute it with a suffix that you wish to use.
      (I) Mina töötan, mina teretan (suffix -n)
      (You) Sina töötad, sina teretad (suffix -d)
      (He/she) Tema töötab, tema teretab (suffix -b; Estonian has no genders)
      (We) Meie töötame, meie teretame (suffix -me)
      (You) Teie töötate, teie teretate (suffix -te)
      (Them) Nemad töötavad, nemad teretavad (suffix -vad)
      In these cases I have only brought out the present cases. There are also past cases, such as Past Simple (I worked = töötasin, I greeted = teretasin), Present Perfect (I have worked = ma olen töötanud; I have greeted = ma olen teretanud) and Past Perfect (I had worked = ma olin töötanud; I had greeted = ma olin teretanud). Estonian has no actual tense for Future, instead Present forms are used to denote events that are going to happen by implying either by specifying the time of the event or by an extra verb 'hakkama', which works in a way similar to the German 'werden' (for the future, not passive)
      As far as pronouns go, there are very few. I = 'mina' or 'ma' for short; You = 'sina'/'sa'; He/she = 'tema'/'ta'; We = 'meie'/'me'; You = 'teie'/'te'; They = 'nemad'/'nad', It = 'see'. Often only the short form is used. For the formal You ('Sie' in German) we use 'Teie'/'Te' and use the same conjugation as if it were 'teie'/'te'.
      This is the simple bit. There are many exceptions, even common ones (To eat =sööma => söön, sööd, sööb, sööme, sööte, söövad). And the grammar is complicated when you want to use Passive voice ('töötatakse', 'tervitatakse') or verb derivatives (greetable, acceptable = 'tervitatav') but that can be explained at a later date.
      to run = jooksma
      If the word 'stem' ends with a consonant (jooks -ma), generally an additional vowel is added.
      ma jooksen, sa jooksed, ta jookseb, me jookseme, te jooksete, nad jooksevad

      Interesting fact: the 'stem' is also the Imperative voice. Tööta! (Work!); Jookse! (Run!); Söö! (Eat!)

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  2. That was really helpful! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (For some reason I can't post a comment. I can only reply to an existing comment.)

      The Estonian word "reede" obviously comes from the Swedish word "fredag". The same goes for the "lau" in "laupäev".

      Delete
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