Word
Hän pitää vihreästä väristä.
Meaning
He likes the color green.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Hän pitää vihreästä väristä.
The lesson says the elative case (-sta/-stä) means 'out of' or 'from'. Why is it used here for 'likes'?
In Finnish, certain verbs demand that the words connected to them are in a specific case. The verb pitää (to like) always requires the elative case (-sta/-stä). So, a Finnish speaker grammatically says they like 'from' something.
Why do both vihreästä (green) and väristä (color) have the -stä ending?
Adjectives in Finnish have to match the noun they describe. Because the noun väri (color) is in the elative case (väristä), the adjective vihreä (green) must also take the exact same -stä ending, becoming vihreästä.
Why is the ending -stä instead of -sta for these two words?
This is due to vowel harmony. The root words vihreä and väri contain the front vowels ä, e, and i. Because they contain front vowels, they take the front-vowel ending -stä. You only use -sta if the word has back vowels (a, o, u).
The English translation says 'the color green', but the Finnish words are in the order 'green color'. Is this the normal way to say it?