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Questions & Answers about Poliisi tulee nopeasti.
Why does the Finnish sentence use a singular verb (tulee) when the English translation says "are coming"?
In Finnish, the word poliisi is grammatically singular, acting like "the police force" or "a police officer". Because it is a singular subject, it takes the matching 3rd person singular verb tulee. English treats "police" as a plural noun, which is why the translation says "are coming" instead of "is coming".
Since this lesson is about commands (the imperative), how would I tell someone to "Come quickly!"?
To form a command directed at one person, you use the imperative form. For Type 3 verbs like tulla (to come), you find the imperative by taking the "I" form (tulen) and dropping the final -n. This gives you the command Tule! So, "Come quickly!" would be Tule nopeasti!
How does the word nopeasti (quickly) get its ending?
Just like adding "-ly" in English turns "quick" into "quickly", Finnish adds the ending -sti to turn an adjective into an adverb (a word that describes how an action is done). You attach it directly to the stem of the adjective nopea (quick), resulting in nopeasti.
I remember tulla is a Type 3 verb. How do we get from tulla to tulee?