suolaan

Suolaan is a Finnish word form that can refer to either a verb form or a noun illative form. As a verb, suolaan is the first-person singular present indicative of suolata, meaning "to salt." In this sense, it appears in sentences about preserving food or flavoring dishes, as in "Minä suolaan kalan" or "Me suolaamme lihaa."

As a noun form, suolaan is the illative case of suola, the noun for salt. In Finnish grammar, illative forms express movement toward or into something; thus suolaan can appear in contexts describing movement toward or into salt, or in phrases that require directional inflection. Because of this dual function, the exact meaning of "suolaan" is determined by syntactic context: it could either denote the action of salting or indicate "into salt."

In language use, the verb sense is common in everyday cooking contexts, while the illative sense is primarily a grammatical form encountered in written Finnish or in formal expressions. The word exemplifies how Finnish forms can overlap in spelling while serving different grammatical roles.

See also: suola, suolata, Finnish grammar, illative case.