Breakdown of Minulla ei ole luottokorttia tai käteistä.
olla
to be
minä
I
tai
or
ei
no / not (negative verb)
käteinen
cash
luottokortti
credit card
Questions & Answers about Minulla ei ole luottokorttia tai käteistä.
Why do both luottokorttia and käteistä have partitive endings?
In Finnish, when you say you do not have something, the thing you lack must be in the partitive case. Because this sentence uses the negative structure ei ole (don't have), both 'credit card' and 'cash' take a partitive ending.
How is the partitive formed for luottokortti?
Luottokortti ends in a single vowel (-i). For most words ending in a single vowel, you just add -a or -ä to make the partitive. That gives us luottokorttia.
Why does the word for cash, käteinen, turn into käteistä?
Words ending in -nen have a special rule that you will see often. The -nen part changes to -s- before adding an ending. To make the partitive, you change -nen to -s- and add -ta, resulting in käteistä.
Why is the word for 'I' minulla here instead of minä?
Finnish doesn't have a direct verb for 'to have'. Instead, it uses the adessive case ending -lla (meaning 'on' or 'at') plus the verb olla (to be). So, minulla ei ole literally means 'at me is not'.
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