Breakdown of Lääkäri hoitaa sairasta miestä.
mies
man
sairas
sick
lääkäri
doctor
hoitaa
to take care of, to treat
Questions & Answers about Lääkäri hoitaa sairasta miestä.
Why are sairasta and miestä in the partitive case?
The verb hoitaa (to treat, care for) is a partitive verb, meaning it requires the target of the action (the object) to be in the partitive case. This makes sense because treating a patient is usually an ongoing process, and in Finnish, ongoing actions take a partitive object.
Why does the adjective sairasta also have a partitive ending?
In Finnish, adjectives must always match the case of the noun they describe. Because the noun miestä is in the partitive case, the adjective describing it must also change to its partitive form, sairasta.
How do you form the partitive sairasta from the dictionary word sairas?
For words ending in the letters -as (like sairas), you simply add -ta or -tä directly to the dictionary form to make the partitive. So, sairas + -ta becomes sairasta.
Based on the current lesson, how would I say 'The doctor is treating my sick husband'?
To say 'my husband' (or 'my man'), you add the first-person possessive suffix -ni to the end of the noun. The possessive suffix always comes right after the case ending, so miestä + -ni becomes miestäni. Adjectives do not take possessive suffixes, so the full sentence is: Lääkäri hoitaa sairasta miestäni.
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