Breakdown of Minä en tiedä hotellin osoitetta.
minä
I
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
hotelli
hotel
tietää
to know
osoite
address
Questions & Answers about Minä en tiedä hotellin osoitetta.
Why is the word for hotel written as hotellin here?
Hotellin is the genitive form of hotelli (hotel). Adding the -n ending makes it mean "the hotel's" or "of the hotel", showing possession.
Can I switch the order and say osoitetta hotellin like "the address of the hotel" in English?
No, in Finnish, the word in the genitive case (the owner) almost always comes directly before the thing being owned. You have to say hotellin osoitetta (the hotel's address).
Why is the verb "know" written as tiedä instead of its basic dictionary form tietää?
Because it is in a negative sentence. After the negative word en (I do not), you use the verb stem. You find this by taking the "I" form, tiedän (I know), and dropping the -n to get tiedä.
Why does the word for address have the partitive ending (osoitetta)?
Because the sentence is negative ("I do not know"). In Finnish, when an action is negative, the object of that action (the thing you don't know) must be in the partitive case.
How do we get the partitive form osoitetta from the basic word osoite?
Finnish words that end in -e (like osoite) belong to a special group. To make them partitive, you add -tta or -ttä instead of just a single -a or -ä.
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