Breakdown of Häät ovat kahdentenakymmenentenä. Me vietämme aikaa siellä.
olla
to be
me
we
siellä
there
aika
time (concept, duration)
kahdeskymmenes
twentieth
viettää
to spend / to celebrate (time, holidays)
häät
wedding
Questions & Answers about Häät ovat kahdentenakymmenentenä. Me vietämme aikaa siellä.
How do we build the massive word kahdentenakymmenentenä?
This means 'on the twentieth'. The ordinal for 20th is kahdeskymmenes (literally 'second tenth'). To say that something happens 'on' a certain day, we use the essive case. For compound numbers, both parts of the number must take the essive ending. So kahdes becomes kahdentena and kymmenes becomes kymmenentenä. Put them together and you get kahdentenakymmenentenä.
Why does the essive ending change from -na in the middle of the number to -nä at the very end?
Finnish vowel harmony applies to each part of a compound word separately. The first part, kahdentena, has the back vowel 'a', so it takes the back-vowel ending -na. The second part, kymmenentenä, has the front vowels 'y' and 'e', so it takes the front-vowel ending -nä.
Why does the sentence use the plural verb ovat (are) for a single wedding?
The Finnish word for wedding, häät, is a plural-only word. Even when you are talking about just one single wedding event, the word is grammatically plural. Because the subject is plural, the verb must match it, so we use ovat instead of on.
Why is the word for time, aika, written as aikaa in the second sentence?
It is in the partitive case. Spending time is an ongoing action without a definite end, and you are spending an unspecified amount of it. Because 'time' acts as an uncountable concept here, it requires the partitive ending -a.
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