Breakdown of Näyttely avattiin yhdeksäntenätoista syyskuuta.
avata
to open
syyskuu
September
näyttely
exhibition
yhdeksästoista
nineteenth
Questions & Answers about Näyttely avattiin yhdeksäntenätoista syyskuuta.
Why does the word for "nineteenth" look so long and end in -nätoista?
To say "on the [number] day", Finnish uses the essive case, which adds a -na or -nä ending. The basic word for 19th is yhdeksästoista. When ordinal numbers from 11 to 19 decline, only the first part changes. So, the yhdeksäs (ninth) part becomes yhdeksäntenä, and the -toista (-teen) part stays exactly the same, creating yhdeksäntenätoista.
Why is September written as syyskuuta instead of just syyskuu?
When giving a date, the month is always in the partitive case. This is because you are talking about one specific day out of that whole month, similar to saying "the 19th of September" in English. Since syyskuu ends in two vowels, the partitive ending is -ta.
Why is "was opened" translated as the single word avattiin?
Avattiin is the past passive form of the verb avata (to open). Finnish uses the passive voice when an action is done by an unspecified person or group of people. The Finnish passive is formed by changing the verb itself, rather than using a helper verb like "was" in English.
Why is Näyttely (exhibition) in its basic dictionary form here?
Even though the exhibition is the object receiving the action (it is being opened), the verb is in the passive voice. In Finnish, when a sentence is in the passive, the object is put into the basic nominative form rather than taking a normal object ending like -n.