Breakdown of Itsenäisyyspäivää juhlittiin kuudentena joulukuuta.
joulukuu
December
juhlia
to party / to celebrate
kuudes
sixth
itsenäisyyspäivä
Independence Day
Questions & Answers about Itsenäisyyspäivää juhlittiin kuudentena joulukuuta.
Why does kuudes (sixth) become kuudentena here?
This is how Finnish expresses 'on the [number]th'. You take the ordinal number kuudes (sixth) and put it in the essive case. The stem of kuudes is kuudent-, and adding the essive ending -na gives us kuudentena (on the sixth).
Why does the month joulukuu have the partitive ending -ta?
In Finnish dates, the month always takes the partitive case. You can think of it as saying 'the sixth day of December'. Since it is a part of the whole month, we use the partitive form joulukuuta.
Who is celebrating in this sentence, and what verb form is juhlittiin?
Juhlittiin is the past passive form of the verb juhlia (to celebrate). Finnish uses the passive when the specific people doing the action are not mentioned or it means 'people in general'. It translates well to the English passive 'was celebrated'.
Why is itsenäisyyspäivää (Independence Day) in the partitive case?
It is the object of the sentence, and the verb juhlia (to celebrate) usually requires its object to be in the partitive case. This is because celebrating is seen as an ongoing, continuous action rather than something with a strict physical end point.
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