Word
Minä valmistin aamiaisen eilen.
Meaning
I prepared breakfast yesterday.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
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 ?