Breakdown of En lähde toimistosta vielä.
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
vielä
yet / still
lähteä
to leave
toimisto
office
Questions & Answers about En lähde toimistosta vielä.
Why does toimisto have -sta at the end?
The ending -sta is the elative case, which means "out of" or "from". In English, we just say "leave the office", but in Finnish, the verb lähteä (to leave) requires you to state where you are departing from. Since an office is an enclosed space, we use -sta to say we are leaving "out of" it.
Why is the verb lähde instead of lähden?
This is a negative sentence starting with en (I don't). In Finnish, the negative word acts like a verb and takes the personal ending, while the main action verb drops its ending. So instead of lähden (I leave), you use en plus the bare stem lähde.
The dictionary form is lähteä. Why did the 't' change to a 'd' in lähde?
This is due to consonant gradation, a common spelling pattern in Finnish. When building the stem for lähteä, the strong consonant combination -ht- softens to the weak -hd-. The negative stem uses this weak grade, so lähteä becomes lähde.
How does vielä work in this sentence?
By itself, vielä means "yet" or "still". When you pair it with a negative verb like en (I don't), it creates the combined meaning "not yet". Here, en lähde ... vielä translates to "I am not leaving ... yet".