Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Finnish grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Äiti hoitaa lasta.
Why is the word for "child" written as lasta instead of lapsi?
Two things are happening here. First, the verb hoitaa (to take care of) requires the word receiving the action to be in the partitive case. Second, the word lapsi has an unusual stem change. Instead of just adding a partitive ending, the stem changes to las-, making the partitive form lasta.
How would I use the possessive suffixes from this lesson to say "My mother is taking care of your child"?
You would attach -ni (my) to äiti, making it äitini. For the child, the suffix -si (your) attaches to the very end of the word, after the partitive case ending. So lasta + -si becomes lastasi. The whole sentence would be: Äitini hoitaa lastasi.
Why does the verb hoitaa have a double a at the end?
In the "he/she/it" form (third-person singular), Finnish verbs typically double the final vowel of their stem. The stem here is hoita-, so adding another a makes it hoitaa.
The English translation says "The mother", but where is the word for "the"?
Finnish doesn't have articles like "a" or "the". The word äiti can mean "a mother" or "the mother", and you just figure out which one makes sense based on the context of the conversation.