Questions & Answers about Sinä ostat juustoa ja voita.
Why do juusto and voi have extra letters at the end here?
They are in the partitive case because they are mass nouns (things you cannot easily count, like foods or substances). Since you are buying an unspecified amount (some cheese and butter), Finnish uses the partitive forms juustoa and voita.
Why does the partitive of juusto end in -a but voi ends in -ta?
The partitive ending depends on the word's final letters. Juusto ends in a single vowel (o), so it just takes an -a to become juustoa. Voi ends in two different vowels (oi), so the rule is to add -ta, making it voita.
Does this sentence mean you buy the cheese or you buy some cheese?
It means you buy some cheese. Because juustoa and voita are in the partitive case, they express an indefinite quantity. If you were buying a specific, whole block of cheese you had already talked about, you would use a different grammatical case.
Why does the verb ostaa become ostat here?
The verb ostaa (to buy) has to match the subject sinä (you). In Finnish, verbs matching sinä always end in -t. So, the basic stem osta- gets a -t to become ostat.
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