Questions & Answers about Sairaanhoitaja puhuu terveydestä.
The current lesson is about the translative case (-ksi) for roles. Why isn't sairaanhoitaja in the translative case here?
The translative case is used for a change of state, like becoming a profession (for example, opiskella sairaanhoitajaksi = to study to become a nurse). In this sentence, the nurse is the subject of the sentence who is already performing an action, so sairaanhoitaja stays in the basic nominative case.
Sairaanhoitaja is a long word! How is it built?
It is a compound word made of two parts. Sairaan is the genitive form of sairas (sick), and hoitaja means carer or attendant. Put together, a sairaanhoitaja is literally a carer of the sick.
Why does the word for health (terveys) end in -stä here?
The ending -stä is the elative case. While it usually translates to out of, verbs related to speaking or communicating, like puhua (to speak) and kertoa (to tell), require the elative case to mean about. So terveydestä means about health.
How does terveys change to terveyde- before adding the -stä ending?
Finnish words ending in -us or -ys usually change their final -s to -de- when you add case endings. Therefore, the base word terveys (health) changes its stem to terveyde-, and then we attach the -stä ending.
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