In Finnish there are a number of ways to say for example “I am lost” or that “something is lost”. In English we commonly use “lost” in a more general sense, it can either mean that something is temporarily lost and currently in a state of “being” lost, or it can mean that something “is” lost in an implied longer tense, for example if an opportunity is lost, or if for example something from our past is lost -albeit it only in this human experience of reality and not in the eternal sense. We also use the verb “to misplace” in English in a slightly different context, to be “misplaced” implies not that something is lost in any sense but specifically in the sense that something is not where, or not functioning in the physical or metaphorical dimension or way that it is supposed to. 

In Finnish probably the two most common verbs to express the idea of being “lost” are the verbs kadottaa and eksyä, although the senses in which they can both mean “to be lost” can differ greatly. The verb kadottaa implies that something or someone stops being “there” or present within the context of the observed. For example kadotimme pyhän kiven jokeen - “we lost the sacred stone in the river”, kadotimme - “we lost”, pyhän kiven - genitive form of pyhä kivi - “sacred stone”, jokeen - “into the river”. In this case the illative case of joki - “river” is used because of the implied sense of losing something “in” the river, but in the example: kadotimme pyhän kiven vuorille - “we lost the sacred stone in the mountains”, the allative form vuorille - “(on)to the mountains” is used in this context, due to the spatial and dimensional implications of losing something in a landscape like mountains, as opposed to in a river or enclosed area, where the illative case is used. 

The verb kadottaa can also be used to imply a deliberate act of losing something, for example yritimme kadottaa karhun metsään - “we tried to lose the bear in the forest”, with the implied sense here being that we try to “lose” something from us, in much the same way that we woud say in English "we tried to lose the bear in the woods”.

The verb eksyä can also mean “to be lost” but with very different meanings implied. For one, eksyä implies more of a deviation from something or someone’s intended pathway, and this verb eksyä often implies being “lost” in a less total sense, i.e. one might have a vague idea at least how the sense of “lost” came to be within the context of movement. For example I could say olin eksysissä Helgingin katuihin - “I was lost (in a state of being lost) on the (into the) streets of Helsinki”, which is something that has actually happened to me on multiple occasions, simply because I am not used to cities, and also feel totally at home in Helsinki, so I tend to just “wander” for hours and end up in places I didn’t intend to be, gradually building up a mental picture of the city. In a context like this, the verb eksyä would be used. The verb eksyä can often be used in positive contexts too, for example the idea of finding or coming across something unexpected during the process of not being on the originally intended pathway. For example eksyin rauhalliseen paikkaan - “I came across/stumbled across a peaceful place”. Note that in both these contexts with eksyä I am using the illative case in the sense of meaning “into”, so the previous Finnish sentence would literally mean something like “I got myself lost into/stumbled into a peaceful place”. For a couple of longer sentences I could describe my evening yesterday for example:

Tapasin ystävättäreni eilen illalla, ja kävelimme rannikolle. Eksyimme metsäaukeamalla, mäntyjen alle ja rannan taakse, ja istuimme siellä puhuen ja juoden vähän viiniä. 

“Yesterday I met my female friend, and we walked towards the shore. We came across a forest clearing, underneath pine trees and behind the beach, and we sat there speaking and drinking a bit of wine”. This is broken down as such: tapasin - "I met", ystävättäreni - "my female friend", from ystävätär - "female friend", eilen - "yesterday", illalla - "in the evening", ja - "and", kävelimme - "we walked", rannikolle - "towards the beach", eksyimme - "we became lost, we came upon" metsäaukeamalla - "at a forest clearing", mäntyjen alla - "under the pine trees" ja rannan taakse - "and behind the beach, ja istuimme - "and we sat", siellä - "there", puhuen - "speaking" ja juoden vähän viiniä - "and drinking a bit of wine". 

 

I hope that this article was an interesting read. I wrote all the Finnish sentences but used a translator to change a couple of grammatical verb usages, e.g. using the instructive forms puhuen and juoden in the longer two sentences given above and also in using the mille form alle rather than alla. I never use translate to translate things when writing about languages, and only use it as a tool to translate back certain things sometimes and to then make changes, in other words no translation app or website is ever responsible for my writings in other languages, and is only an occasional back-translation tool to check my wording.