Breakdown of Opettaja ei etsi teitä.
te
you (plural/formal)
opettaja
teacher
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
etsiä
to look for
Questions & Answers about Opettaja ei etsi teitä.
Why use the partitive form teitä instead of just te here?
Why is the verb just etsi instead of etsii?
This is a negative sentence, so the main verb drops its personal ending. The positive version would be Opettaja etsii (The teacher looks for), ending with a double vowel. Following the negative word ei, we use the connegative form, which strips that ending back to etsi.
Does teitä mean 'you' as one person or multiple people?
It usually means multiple people (like 'you all'), because it is the plural form. However, Finnish sometimes uses the plural te to politely address a single person in formal situations. If the teacher were talking to one student informally, the sentence would use sinua.
The partitive ending is usually just -a or -ä. Why does teitä end in -itä?