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Questions & Answers about Ostatko punaista lihaa?
Why do both punaista and lihaa have partitive endings?
In Finnish, an adjective always has to match the case of the noun it describes. Because the noun liha (meat) is in the partitive case (lihaa), the adjective punainen (red) must also be in the partitive case (punaista).
The basic word for "red" is punainen. How does it change into punaista?
Finnish words ending in -nen have a special rule. When you want to put them in the partitive case, the -nen drops and changes to -s- before adding the ending -ta. So, punainen becomes the stem punais-, and adding -ta gives us punaista.
Why do we use the partitive case for "red meat" in this sentence anyway?
How is the word ostatko built?
It comes from the verb ostaa (to buy). First, we conjugate it for "you" by adding -t, giving us ostat (you buy). Then, we add the question particle -ko to the very end to turn the statement into a yes/no question: Ostatko? (Are you buying?).