Breakdown of Lähetin eilen kaksi postikorttia.
kaksi
two
lähettää
to send
eilen
yesterday
postikortti
the postcard
Questions & Answers about Lähetin eilen kaksi postikorttia.
How do we get lähetin from the dictionary form lähettää?
Lähettää is a Type 1 verb. To form the past tense, we first find the stem (lähetä-), where the double tt weakens to a single t. Then we add the past tense marker -i-. Because the final ä drops out before i in Type 1 verbs, we get läheti-. Finally, we add the personal ending -n for I, making lähetin.
Why is the word for postcard in the partitive form (postikorttia)?
In Finnish, any number greater than one requires the noun following it to be in the partitive singular form. Since the sentence has kaksi (two), the basic word postikortti takes the partitive ending -a to become postikorttia.
Where is the word for I (minä) in this sentence?
You don't always need it! For the first and second person (I, you, we, you plural), the verb ending already tells you who is acting. The -n on lähetin clearly means I sent, so it is very common to drop minä in everyday language.
Does the whole compound word postikortti change its form?
No, only the very last part of a compound word takes the grammatical ending. The word is made of posti (mail) and kortti (card). When making it partitive, only kortti changes to korttia, while posti stays in its basic form.
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