Finnish to Slovenian: when us means a pair experiencing something
The Finnish group may be larger than its shortest reference reveals
White’s Finnish textbook gives Meillä oli hauskaa for having had a good time. The expression concerns a group that includes the speaker, but it does not itself specify that the group contains exactly two people. A Slovenian translation should establish the group from the surrounding account before selecting a dual expression.
Finnish UD distinguishes singular and plural rather than a separate dual number. A Finnish speaker and one companion can therefore be referred to through a plural form, as can a larger group. The target’s potential distinction is not permission to reduce every Finnish we-reference to a couple.
This is especially relevant in a message sent after an outing. The person receiving the message may be the one companion, a member of a larger group, or somebody who did not attend. Identify the actual participants rather than treating the size of the audience as the size of the group described.
The Slovenian pair can appear in an experiencer construction
The SSKJ² dictionary defines midva as a pair including the speaker and records related forms such as nama and naju in other grammatical environments. Its nama se nikamor ne mudi describes the pair not being in a hurry. This is not a parallel translation of the Finnish good-time example; it illustrates that the pair can be the people experiencing a situation rather than deliberately performing an action.
White’s Finnish page likewise includes personal-state expressions alongside ordinary possession. A source report about how a group felt should not be turned into a statement about something the group owned merely because its personal form resembles a possessive construction. The full predicate establishes the relationship.
For this direction, keep number and role as separate questions. A phrase can correctly identify two people yet assign them the wrong role in the target event. Conversely, a suitable experiencer construction can still be wrong if it reduces a Finnish group of several participants to two.
Case changes do not introduce new people
SSKJ² records prepositional and other uses of the dual forms, including around the pair and between the pair. The same two participants can thus be represented differently as the relationship changes. A target pronoun differing from midva is not automatically a switch to another group.
Finnish also changes personal forms according to their construction. White’s page contrasts an adessive personal-state expression with ordinary first-person clauses in its accompanying conversation. When a Finnish account moves between what the group did and what happened to the group, follow the participant reference through that grammatical change.
The Slovenian dictionary additionally notes use of the overt nominative dual for emphasis or contrast. A Finnish sentence contrasting our experience with somebody else’s can require that contrast to remain visible, even if its basic person information is recoverable elsewhere.
The useful target question is therefore not simply whether a dual word appears. Establish which two people are meant, how the sentence relates them to the event, and whether the source highlights them against another group. Those decisions preserve the Finnish account while allowing Slovenian to express a distinction the source need not mark separately.
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