Breakdown of Kesä loppuu kolmantenakymmenentenäensimmäisenä elokuuta.
loppua
to end
elokuu
August
kesä
summer
kolmaskymmenesensimmäinen
thirty-first
Questions & Answers about Kesä loppuu kolmantenakymmenentenäensimmäisenä elokuuta.
Why is kolmantenakymmenentenäensimmäisenä so incredibly long?
It is the ordinal number for 'thirty-first' (kolmaskymmenesensimmäinen) in the essive case, which is used to express 'on the [nth] day'. In Finnish, compound numbers are written as one single word, and when you use a case ending like the essive, every single part of the number has to change. So, 'third' (kolmas) becomes kolmantena, 'tenth' (kymmenes) becomes kymmenentenä, and 'first' (ensimmäinen) becomes ensimmäisenä.
I noticed both -na and -nä endings in that big number word. Why don't they match?
Even though compound numbers are written together as one giant word, vowel harmony applies to each individual part separately. Kolmantena uses -na because of its back vowels (o, a), while kymmenentenä and ensimmäisenä take -nä because they contain front vowels (y, e, i, ä).
Why is the month elokuuta in the partitive case?
When giving a date in Finnish, the month is always put in the partitive case. You can think of it as saying 'on the thirty-first day of August'. You are referring to a specific amount of days out of the whole month.
Why use loppuu here instead of lopettaa for 'ends'?
Loppua is an intransitive verb, meaning something ends on its own, just like kesä (the summer) does here. You would use lopettaa if someone was actively ending or stopping something, like 'I end the game'.