Breakdown of Minun täytyy ottaa lääke ja levätä.
minä
I
ja
and
ottaa
to take
täytyä
to have to
levätä
to rest
lääke
medicine
minun
my, mine
Questions & Answers about Minun täytyy ottaa lääke ja levätä.
Why does the sentence start with Minun (my) instead of Minä (I)?
In Finnish, when you use the verb täytyy to say someone must do something, the person who has to do the action is put into the genitive case. Minun is the genitive form of minä. You can think of it as meaning "of me it is required."
If the subject was "we" instead of "I", would the verb täytyy change?
No, täytyy is a special impersonal verb. It never changes its ending to match the person doing the action, so it always looks exactly like this. You only change the pronoun at the start of the sentence, for example, Meidän täytyy for "We must".
Why are both ottaa and levätä in their basic dictionary forms?
When you use a necessity verb like täytyy, any action verbs that follow it must stay in their basic infinitive form. Because the word ja (and) connects the two actions, they both share the same täytyy and both stay in their basic dictionary forms.
Normally, if I do an action to a whole object, it gets an -n ending (like "Otan lääkkeen"). Why is lääke in its basic form here?
This is a very important exception to remember! In sentences that use an obligation verb like täytyy, whole objects do not take the -n ending. Instead, they stay in their basic nominative form. Because of this rule, we say täytyy ottaa lääke instead of lääkkeen.
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