Learn Finnish: Huono elokuva väsyttää meitä.

The base verb is väsyä, which means to get tired. By adding the causative suffix -ttää, it becomes väsyttää, meaning to cause to be tired or to make tired. In this sentence, the movie is the subject causing the tiredness.

Why is the object meitä in the partitive case instead of the accusative meidät?

Causative verbs that describe physical feelings or emotions, like tiring or annoying someone, take a partitive object. This is because causing a feeling is viewed as an ongoing process rather than a completed action with a definitive endpoint.

I have seen the phrase minua väsyttää for I am tired. Is it the same verb used here?

Yes, it is the exact same verb! When expressing basic feelings, Finnish often uses this verb impersonally without a subject, literally meaning it makes me tired. In our example sentence, however, there is an explicit subject doing the action: huono elokuva (a bad movie).

How does consonant gradation work for causative verbs like väsyttää?

Causative verbs ending in -ttaa or -ttää are verb type 1. They follow normal consonant gradation where the strong -tt- weakens to -t- in closed syllables (like minä väsytän, I tire someone). Here, the third-person singular creates an open syllable, so it remains strong: väsyttää.