Breakdown of Joimme viiniä yhdeksäntenätoista syyskuuta.
viini
wine
juoda
to drink
syyskuu
September
yhdeksästoista
nineteenth
Questions & Answers about Joimme viiniä yhdeksäntenätoista syyskuuta.
Why is on the nineteenth written as yhdeksäntenätoista?
It is the ordinal number for 19th (yhdeksästoista) put into the essive case to mean on a specific day. The tricky part with teen numbers (11-19) is that only the first half gets the case ending. The root for 9th changes to yhdeksäntenä (on the 9th), and the -toista part just gets tacked onto the end without changing.
Why is September (syyskuu) in the partitive case (syyskuuta)?
In Finnish, when you give a date like the 19th of September, the month is always put in the partitive case. The partitive ending -ta acts a bit like the English word of in this context.
Why is the wine in the partitive case (viiniä)?
Because wine is an uncountable liquid, and the sentence is about drinking an unspecified amount of it (some wine). If you had finished a specific, complete bottle of wine, it would take the total object case instead.
How does the verb juoda (to drink) become joimme?
This is the past tense for we drank. The verb stem is juo-. When you add the past tense marker -i, the vowel combination uoi is tricky to say and shrinks down to just oi. Then you add the we ending -mme, giving us joimme.