Breakdown of Valmistajan ohje ei ole luettava, vaikka se on tärkeä.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
lukea
to read
Questions & Answers about Valmistajan ohje ei ole luettava, vaikka se on tärkeä.
Why does luettava translate to "readable" here instead of "must be read"?
The passive present participle (-tava / -tävä) often works as an adjective meaning "-able" or "-ible" in English. Here, it transforms the verb lukea (to read) into luettava (readable or legible). While it can mean "must be read" in other grammatical structures, here it simply describes the instruction.
How can I tell that this isn't the necessity structure ("must do"), which also uses the -tava participle?
The key is the case of the subject! In the necessity structure, the person who "must" do something is in the genitive case, such as in Minun on luettava (I must read). In this sentence, the subject ohje (instruction) is in the basic nominative case, so olla + -tava just acts as a descriptive adjective meaning the item is able to be read.
Why is tärkeä in the basic nominative case here, rather than the partitive tärkeää?
The pronoun se refers directly back to a specific, countable noun: ohje (an instruction). Because it refers to a single concrete thing rather than an abstract concept, an uncountable mass, or an action, the describing adjective takes the nominative case tärkeä.
Why is valmistajan ohje written as two words? I often see instructions written as long compound words.