Breakdown of Kun minä sammutan tietokoneen, minun ei tarvitse miettiä sähköpostia.
minä
I
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
tietokone
computer
tarvita
to need
Questions & Answers about Kun minä sammutan tietokoneen, minun ei tarvitse miettiä sähköpostia.
Why does the sentence say minun ei tarvitse instead of minä en tarvitse?
To express that someone 'doesn't have to' or 'doesn't need to' do something, Finnish uses a special necessity structure. The person who needs to do something is put in the genitive case (minun instead of minä). Because of this structure, the negative verb is always the third-person ei, no matter who the subject is.
Why is the second verb miettiä in its basic dictionary form?
When you use a necessity structure like ei tarvitse (doesn't need to) or täytyy (must), the verb that follows it always stays in its basic dictionary form, which is called the 1st infinitive. So, minun ei tarvitse miettiä translates to 'I do not need to think'.
Why is sähköpostia (email) in the partitive case here?
The verb miettiä (to think about / to ponder) is an action that expresses an ongoing thought process. Verbs related to thinking and feelings almost always take their object in the partitive case, which is why we add the -a to the end of sähköposti.
In the first part of the sentence, why is tietokoneen (the computer) in the genitive-looking accusative form?