tietää

From Proto-Finnic *teetädäk. Historically derived from the noun tie (“road, way”). The verb apparently meant originally 'to know the way to': "Tiedän talon" meant 'I know the way to the house'.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtie̯tæːˣ/, [ˈt̪ie̞̯t̪æː(ʔ)]
• Hyphenation: tie‧tää
• Rhymes: sietää

tietää

1. (transitive, + accusative) To know, be aware of (meaning the superficial knowledge on, see the usage notes below).
2. (transitive, + partitive) To signify, mean, presage, spell.

• The irregular past participle tiennyt is much more often used 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.
• Also in the third-person singular and plural potential the form can be the regular with -tä- or the 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 expresses usually superficial knowledge on something, e.g. knowledge on the existence of the thing in question, whereas as tuntea expresses more personal, subjective, detailed or deeper knowledge.

Tiedän hänet, mutta en tunne häntä.

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

• (to signify, presage) enteillä, ennustaa, varoittaa

• adjectives: tietty, tietämätön, tietäväinen
• nouns: tiede, tieto, tietäjä, tietämys
• verbs: tiedustella