Reduplication is a phenomenon that happens in quite many languages. In English, for example, we have choo-choo, night-night and bye-bye. In Finnish you can say ruokaruoka to mean “real food” and pikapikaa means “really quickly”.

The function of reduplication is different in different languages. There are languages, for example, that express plurality by repeating a word twice. In English (tree : trees) and Finnish (puu : puut) you do this with a suffix. You can read more about reduplication in different languages on the Wikipedia page.

In this article, we will look at examples of reduplication where the words don’t appear as a compound word. This list contains word chains where the reduplicated form is often inflected in a different case. You can also read about reduplication within one word.

I’m sticking to the most common and widely used of these phrases. You can find other lists online with more niche examples.

1. Päivä päivältä – Progression

First, let’s take a look at word chains where the first iteration appears in its basic form and the second in the miltä-form. Often, these phrases are centered around time or stage progression: things progress little by little.

2. Illasta Iltaan – Mistä Mihin Reduplication

This category consists of word chains where we have a mistä (from) – mihin (to) construction. Often these words very literally mean a transfer or movement from something to something, like for example transferring from one bed to another (#1).

In most cases, it means a repetitive movement (#2). In these cases, there are usually other ways to express the same thing. For example, illasta iltaan “from night to night” could also be expressed as joka ilta “every night” or illasta toiseen “night upon night”.

This group also contains some fixed phrases that have taken on a very specific meaning (#3).

3. Other Reduplication Cases

The examples below have reduplication, but the cases are different from the common combinations above. Their meaning also differs. These phrases are best just learned as they are, as they are just fossilized as they are.

4. Tulee mitä tulee – Oh well

The phrases below all express some kind of resignment to either a past, present or future situation.

• Tee mitä teet, mutta…
  Literally: “Do what you do, but…”
  Meaning: Usually followed by a condition: Do what you want but remember that… / Do what you want, but don’t…
• Tulee mitä tulee.
  Literally: “Comes what comes.”
  Meaning: I’m prepared as well as I can, we’ll see what happens.
• Tehty mikä tehty.
  Literally: “Done what’s done.”
  Meaning: We must accept it now, there’s no changing it anymore.
• Mennyt mikä mennyt.
  Literally: “Gone what’s gone.”
  Meaning: It has gone the way it went, no point fretting over it anymore.
• Olen mitä olen.
  Literally: “I am what I am.”
  Meaning: I can’t change myself, this is who I am.
• Olemme mitä olemme.
  Literally: “We are what we are.”
  Meaning: Whether you like it or not, this is who we are.
• Oli miten oli.
  Literally: “Was how it was.”
  Meaning: It doesn’t matter how it was, this is how it is now.
• Kävi miten kävi.
  Literally: “Went how it went.”
  Meaning: Whatever happens, for better or worse, this is the situation.

5. Enemmän ja enemmän – More and more

The following phrases express that something increases. In English, most of these sentences will have “keep” in them, as you can see in the examples below. This construction is common both with verbs, where it means that the action just keeps increasing, or with comparatives.

6. Puhui puhumistaan – Kept talking

There is also a sentence construction that utilizes the fourth infinitive‘s nounalized verb. With it, you can express a continual action.

7. Reduplication used to stress complete absence

The following sentences stress a complete absence of the word that is being repeated. Naturally, this only works in negative sentences.

8. Reduplication used to express equality

9. Reduplication to gloss over unimportant details

When recounting an event or retelling someone’s words when none of the details really matter, you can use reduplication with ja in the middle. Take for example “Puhuin [sen ja sen] henkilön kanssa, jonka tapasin [siellä ja siellä] ja se sanoi että aidan piti olla [niin ja niin] korkea“. This is a sentence that retells what happened without giving any of the unimportant details. All it says is that I talked to some guy, whom I had met somewhere, and who told me the fence had to be a certain height. We don’t care who the guy was, where we met him and how high the fence had to be.

That’s it for different types of reduplication in Finnish! A heads up: I’ve chosen to leave out certain reduplication structures. If your Finnish is good enough, you can read more about them in this very thorough study.