Breakdown of Onko sinulla harvinaisia postimerkkejä, joita haluat myydä?
olla
to be
sinä
you
myydä
to sell
haluta
to want
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
harvinainen
rare
postimerkki
postage stamp
Questions & Answers about Onko sinulla harvinaisia postimerkkejä, joita haluat myydä?
Why do we use joita instead of the basic form joka for 'that'?
Joita is the partitive plural form of the relative pronoun joka. It must match the word it refers back to, which is postimerkkejä (stamps). Because the stamps are in the partitive plural, the relative pronoun pointing to them must also be in the partitive plural.
Why are harvinaisia postimerkkejä in the partitive plural in the first place?
In Finnish 'have' sentences like onko sinulla (do you have), the thing you possess takes the partitive case if it is plural and you are talking about an unspecified amount. You are asking if they have 'any' rare stamps in general, not a specific known group of stamps.
The basic word for stamp is postimerkki. Why does the ending look like -ejä in the plural instead of -iä?
For many core Finnish words ending in -i (like merkki), the final -i changes to an -e- in the plural stem. When we add the partitive plural ending, it becomes -ejä, giving us postimerkkejä.
How do we get the form harvinaisia from the base word harvinainen (rare)?
Words ending in -nen follow a specific pattern. To find the stem, you drop the -nen and replace it with -s-. From harvinainen we get the stem harvinais-. Then we add the partitive plural ending -ia to make harvinaisia.
Learn Onko sinulla harvinaisia postimerkkejä, joita haluat myydä and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free