Word
Sinun pitää säästää rahaa.
Meaning
You have to save money.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Sinun pitää säästää rahaa.
sinä
you
raha
money
pitää
must / have to
säästää
to save (money, resources)
Questions & Answers about Sinun pitää säästää rahaa.
Why does this sentence start with sinun (your) instead of sinä (you)?
When using an obligation verb like pitää (to have to / must), the subject of the sentence must be in the genitive case. So, sinä becomes sinun.
Since the subject is "you", why isn't the verb conjugated as pidät?
Obligation verbs like pitää and kannattaa are special: they always stay in the 3rd person singular form (the he/she/it form) in these types of sentences. They never change to match the genitive subject.
Why is the verb säästää in its basic dictionary form?
With obligation verbs, the main action word always stays in its basic form (the 1st infinitive). The core structure is always: Genitive subject + pitää + basic verb.
Why is the word for money, rahaa, in the partitive case here?
Because money is an uncountable mass noun. You are saving an unspecified amount of money, not a single whole, countable object, so it takes the partitive ending -a.