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Rovaniemi, Oulu, Kajaani, Joensuu, Kuopio, Mikkeli, Seinäjoki, Kokkola, Vaasa, Tampere, Jyväskylä, Pori, Turku, Lappeenranta, Lahti, Hämeenlinna, Kouvola, Mariehamn, and of course Helsinki are all "Finnish capitals". Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_Finland
Wouldn't they rather be called "regional capitals"? I don't think anyone would think of them ahead of Helsinki if "Finnish capital" was brought up in a conversation.
Is there a way to literally say "The capital of finland"? even if it's not commonly used? If i had to guess it would be either "huvudstaden Finland" eller "huvudstaden av Finland", although which one it is definitely feels up for grabs :p
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That's because you can't have the definite article before that: it's either The capital of Finland or Finland's capital.
It's the same in Swedish – an owner in the s-genitive is enough to make something definite, so you can't have the 'owned' thing definite too. So it's pojkens bok and the boy's book, not "pojkens boken" and "the boy's the book".
"Finland" is not (generally speaking) an adjective; "The Finlandic capital" might be correct, but nobody would ever say it in real life.
The word "huvud" is often pronounced as if it were "huve". That is not the case with the automated voice here though.
Every time Finland is mentioned in this course I want to translate to my native Finnish instead of English. Too many languages.
A capital is a huvudstad, and a capitol is e.g. a parlamentsbyggnad or Kapitolium.
I always thought that 'capital city' is wrong. it should be just 'capital', no?
"capital" is simply short for "capital city". They're both fine. It's from the Latin caput, which means "head".
