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Pöydällä on teetä.

Pöydällä on teetä.
There is tea on the table.
From Lesson 21:The partitive singular (-a/-ä, -ta/-tä)·Finnish

Breakdown of Pöydällä on teetä.

olla
to be
pöytä
table
tee
tea

Questions & Answers about Pöydällä on teetä.

Why is "tea" teetä instead of just tee?
In this sentence, we are talking about an unspecified amount of an uncountable substance (tea). In Finnish, when you say there is some of a mass noun like food or liquid, that word must be in the partitive case. That is why tee becomes teetä.
How do we know to add -tä to tee instead of -ä?
Words that end in a long vowel (like the double ee in tee) take the -ta or -tä ending in the partitive case. Because tee uses front vowels, vowel harmony rules mean we use the front-vowel version -tä.
Where is the word for "there" in this sentence?
Finnish doesn't use a word like "there" for "there is" or "there are" sentences. Instead, you simply start the sentence with the location (pöydällä), follow it with the verb (on), and end with the thing that exists there (teetä).
The dictionary word for table is pöytä. Why does it change to pöydällä?
The ending -llä means "on" or "on top of". Adding this ending triggers a rule called consonant gradation. The strong consonant t in pöytä softens into a weak d, giving us pöydä- before adding the -llä ending.

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