Minä en löytänyt maljakkoa, jota etsimme eilen.
I did not find the vase that we looked for yesterday.
Breakdown of Minä en löytänyt maljakkoa, jota etsimme eilen.
minä
I
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
etsiä
to look for
löytää
to find
eilen
yesterday
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
maljakko
vase
Questions & Answers about Minä en löytänyt maljakkoa, jota etsimme eilen.
Why is the relative pronoun jota in the partitive case instead of just joka?
The relative pronoun takes its case from its role inside its own clause. Here, jota is the object of the verb etsimme (from etsiä, to look for). Because etsiä is a partitive verb that always requires its object to be in the partitive case, the relative pronoun must be the partitive jota.
Why is the word for vase, maljakkoa, also in the partitive case here?
Maljakkoa is the object of the first part of the sentence: Minä en löytänyt (I did not find). Because this is a negative sentence, the object must be in the partitive case. If it were a positive sentence, it would be in the total object case: Minä löysin maljakon.
Does etsimme mean 'we look for' or 'we looked for'?
Here it means 'we looked for', but it can actually be both! For verbs that end in -i, like etsiä, the past tense marker -i- blends into the stem. This makes the present and past tense forms identical (etsimme). We know it is the past tense in this sentence because of the word eilen (yesterday).
Why does löytänyt end in -nyt?
This is the form used for the negative past tense. To say you didn't do something in the past, use the negative verb (like en, et, ei) and add the -nut or -nyt form of the main verb. Since löytää has front vowels, it takes the -nyt ending to follow vowel harmony.
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