Breakdown of Minä valmistin aamiaisen eilen.
minä
I
eilen
yesterday
valmistaa
to prepare (manufacture, make)
aamiainen
the breakfast
Questions & Answers about Minä valmistin aamiaisen eilen.
Why is aamiaisen in the genitive case here? I thought this lesson was about using the nominative for objects.
This lesson teaches that objects drop their -n ending and look like the nominative only with commands (imperatives) or necessity sentences (like ones using täytyy). Because this sentence is just a normal statement with a regular subject (minä) doing an action, the total object takes its normal genitive-accusative ending (-n).
Why does aamiainen (breakfast) change to aamiaise- before getting the -n ending?
The basic word for breakfast is aamiainen. In Finnish, whenever a noun ends in -nen, that ending changes to -se- before adding most grammatical markers. So, the stem becomes aamiaise-, and then you add the object marker -n to get aamiaisen.
How is the past tense valmistin formed from the verb valmistaa?
To make the past tense, we need the past tense marker -i-. For verbs ending in -aa or -ää, the double vowel drops away to make room for the -i-. So valmistaa becomes the stem valmisti-, and we add the personal ending -n for 'I' to get valmistin.
Can I drop minä and just say valmistin aamiaisen eilen?
Yes, you can! Because the verb valmistin has the -n ending, it already clearly means 'I prepared'. In Finnish, the pronouns for 'I', 'you', 'we', and 'you all' are very often dropped because the verb ending already tells us who is doing the action.
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