tunnistaa

Tunnistaa is a Finnish verb meaning to recognize, identify, or distinguish something or someone. The core sense is to establish the identity of a person or thing by perceiving or recalling distinguishing features. It can also mean to detect or identify a phenomenon, signal, or pattern in a system or dataset. In medical or diagnostic contexts, tunnistaa can be used to say that a disease or condition is identified from symptoms or test results, though more technical terms like diagnoosi are common in formal writing.

Morphology and usage notes: In present tense the forms are tunnistan, tunnistat, tunnistaa, tunnistamme, tunnistatte, tunnistavat. The imperfect past forms are tunnistin, tunnistit, tunnisti, tunnistimme, tunnistitte, tunnistivat. The passive form is tunnistetaan, and the past passive is tunnistettu. The verb belongs to the -istaa conjugation class, and it can be used transitively with a direct object referring to a person or thing to be identified.

Common usage: Tunnistaa typically takes an object referring to a person or thing to be identified (for example, a person from a photo or a fingerprint). It is often used with collocations such as kasvoja (faces), ääniä (voices), malleja (patterns), or to refer to recognizing a signal in a system. The verb should not be confused with tunnustaa, which means to confess or acknowledge.

Examples: Minä tunnistan hänet kuvasta. Tämä järjestelmä tunnistaa käyttäjän sormenjäljen. Lääkäri tunnisti taudin oireiden perusteella.