Pitkään

Pitkään is a Finnish adverb meaning for a long time or for a long duration. It is used to express the length of time connected to an action, event, or state, and is common in both spoken and written Finnish.

Grammatical notes: Pitkään behaves as a time adverb and typically follows the verb or clause it modifies. It often appears with tenses that describe continued or completed actions. A closely related common construction is the phrase pitkään aikaan, which emphasizes a long period and is used in various tenses.

Common usage and examples:

- Olen ollut täällä pitkään. (I have been here for a long time.)

- Se kesti pitkään. (It lasted a long time.)

- Hän viipyi kaupungissa pitkään. (He stayed in the city for a long time.)

- En ole nähnyt häntä pitkään aikaan. (I haven’t seen him in a long time.)

In contrast to kauan, another Finnish adverb meaning “for a long time,” pitkään is often preferred after verbs of duration and in phrases emphasizing ongoing time, such as pitkään aikaan. Both forms can be used to convey length of time, but pitkään aikaa is a common, emphasis-marking variant.

Related terms: pitk ä (long), pitkäaikainen (long-term), aika (time). Pitkään is primarily a function word for duration, not a descriptor of a noun’s length, and it integrates smoothly into everyday Finnish speech and formal writing.