Breakdown of Pientä virhettä ei huomata.
pieni
small
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
huomata
to notice
virhe
error
Questions & Answers about Pientä virhettä ei huomata.
Why does huomata look exactly like its basic dictionary form here?
Because of how the passive present negative is formed. It uses the negative verb ei + the passive connegative form. For Type 4 verbs like huomata (to notice), this form happens to look identical to the dictionary form! For comparison, the positive passive is huomataan (is noticed), and the negative is ei huomata (is not noticed).
Why is pientä virhettä in the partitive case rather than the basic form pieni virhe?
Because the sentence is negative. In Finnish, the object of a negative sentence must always be in the partitive case. If this were a positive sentence ("A small mistake is noticed"), the object would be in the basic nominative case: Pieni virhe huomataan.
How do we form the partitive virhettä from the basic dictionary word virhe?
Words that end in -e in their basic form belong to a special word group. To put them into the partitive case, you add the ending -tta or -ttä. Therefore, virhe (mistake) becomes virhettä.
Why is the word for "small" written as pientä?
Adjectives always have to match the grammatical case of the noun they describe. Because virhettä was forced into the partitive case by the negative sentence, pieni must also change to its partitive form, which is pientä.
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