Breakdown of Vapaus on todella tärkeä asia.
olla
to be
tärkeä
important
asia
thing, matter
todella
really (very, intensifier)
vapaus
the freedom
Questions & Answers about Vapaus on todella tärkeä asia.
The lesson is about the suffix -uus or -yys, so why is the word for freedom vapaus instead of vapaauus?
When an adjective ends in a double vowel like vapaa (free), you drop the second vowel before adding the suffix. This prevents a clumsy string of vowels, so instead of vapaauus, it simply becomes vapaus (freedom).
How does the stem of vapaus change if I need to put it in a different case?
Abstract nouns ending in -us or -ys that are derived from adjectives usually have a stem ending in -ute- or -yte-. For example, if you need the partitive case, the word becomes vapautta, and the genitive case is vapauden (notice the consonant gradation changing the t to a d).
Where does the adverb todella come from?
It is actually the adessive case of the word tosi (true). The stem of tosi is tode-, and adding the -lla ending literally means with truth or on truth, which translates perfectly to really or truly in everyday use.
Why are tärkeä and asia in the nominative case here rather than the partitive?
This is a standard A is B sentence. Because the complement asia (thing or matter) is a singular, countable noun, both it and the adjective describing it stay in the basic nominative case. If we dropped the word asia and just said Freedom is important, we would use the partitive instead: Vapaus on tärkeää.
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