tietää

From Proto-Finnic *teetädäk, derived from *tee. Equivalent to tie (“road, way”) +‎ -tää; the original meaning seems to have been "to know the way to" (thus tiedän talon (“I know the way to the house”)).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtie̯tæːˣ/,
• Rhymes: -ietæː
• Hyphenation^(key): tie‧tää

tietää

1. (transitive) to know, be aware of (implying superficial knowledge, see the usage notes below)

   Tiedätkö ratkaisun?

   Do you know the solution?

   Tiesin sinun tulevan tänne.

   I knew you would come here.

   Tiesin sinun tulleen tänne.

   I knew you had come here.

2. (transitive, usually atelic) to mean, spell, signify, presage, bode

   Synonyms: merkitä, enteillä, ennustaa, varoittaa

   Peilin rikkominen tietää epäonnea.

   Breaking a mirror spells bad luck.

• The irregular past participle tiennyt is used much more often than the original, regular active past participle tietänyt, which is falling out of use, although still fully comprehensible.
• tietty is originally probably the irregular passive past participle variant, but it is used as an adjective, not in the verb sense.
• In the third-person singular and plural potential the form can be regular with -tä- or irregular with -nn-.
• (to know): The English verb "to know" can be translated into Finnish with either tietää or tuntea. The difference is that tietää usually expresses superficial knowledge about something, e.g. knowledge that the thing in question exists, whereas tuntea expresses more personal, subjective, detailed or deeper knowledge.

  Tiedän hänet, mutta en tunne häntä.

  I know her (by name), but I don't know her (personally).

• “tietää”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-03

• eittää