Breakdown of Me poseeraamme, kun valokuvaaja katsoo meitä.
me
we
katsoa
to watch
kun
when (conjunction)
valokuvaaja
the photographer
Questions & Answers about Me poseeraamme, kun valokuvaaja katsoo meitä.
Why is the word for "us" in the partitive case (meitä)?
The verb katsoa (to look at) is what we call a partitive verb. In Finnish, when you look at someone or something, the target of your looking must take the partitive case. So, the basic pronoun me (we) becomes meitä.
Why don't we need a word for "at" in katsoo meitä?
In English, we say "looks at us", but the Finnish verb katsoa already carries the meaning of directing your eyes toward something. The idea of "at" is naturally built into the verb and the partitive case, so no extra prepositions or postpositions are needed.
How is the word valokuvaaja (photographer) formed?
It is a very logical compound word! It combines valo (light) with kuvaaja (a person who captures images, from the verb kuvata, to film or take a picture). So a photographer is literally a "light-picturer".
What is the dictionary form of poseeraamme (we pose), and how does it conjugate?
The basic verb is poseerata (to pose). It is a Type 4 verb. To find the stem, you drop the -ta and add a matching vowel to make it long, giving you the stem poseeraa-. Finally, you just add the "we" ending -mme to get poseeraamme.