Breakdown of Laukku maksaa neljäkymmentäkahdeksan euroa.
laukku
bag
maksaa
to cost
kahdeksan
eight
euro
euro
Questions & Answers about Laukku maksaa neljäkymmentäkahdeksan euroa.
Wait, I thought maksaa means 'to pay'. Does it also mean 'to cost'?
Yes! The verb maksaa means both "to pay" and "to cost". You can usually figure out which one it is based on the context of the sentence. Since a bag can't pay for anything, it must mean "costs" here.
How do you break down the long number word neljäkymmentäkahdeksan?
Finnish numbers are built logically but often written as one long word. This one breaks down into three parts: neljä (four) + kymmentä (tens) + kahdeksan (eight). Literally, it translates to "four tens eight".
Why is the word for euro written as euroa instead of just euro?
In Finnish, whenever you use a number greater than one, the noun that follows it must be in the partitive case. euroa is the partitive form of euro. If it were just one euro, you would use the basic form: yksi euro.
Since Finnish doesn't have words for 'a' or 'the', how do we know it translates to 'The bag' and not 'A bag'?
Word order gives us clues! When a noun is the subject and placed at the very beginning of a basic sentence like this, it is usually something the speaker and listener already know about, so it translates best as "The bag". If it were new information ("a bag"), the sentence structure would likely be different.