Breakdown of Poliisi esti vakoojaa lähettämästä salaista koodia.
lähettää
to send
poliisi
the police / police officer
estää
to prevent
salainen
secret (adjective)
vakooja
spy
koodi
code
Questions & Answers about Poliisi esti vakoojaa lähettämästä salaista koodia.
Since this lesson is about the -kseen form, why can't we use it here for "sending"?
The -kseen structure translates to "in order to do" something, which expresses purpose. This sentence doesn't express purpose. Instead, the verb estää (to prevent) has a strict rule: it requires the action being prevented to be in the elative form of the third infinitive (-mästä / -mästä). So, "prevent from sending" becomes estää lähettämästä.
Why is the spy (vakoojaa) in the partitive case?
The verb estää requires its direct object (the person or thing being stopped) to be in the partitive case.
Why is the secret code (salaista koodia) also in the partitive case?
It is the object of the action lähettää (to send). Because the police prevented the spy, the action of sending the code was interrupted and never successfully finished. Uncompleted actions require their object to be in the partitive case.
How is the word vakooja (spy) formed?
Just like in English where adding "-er" to a verb creates a noun for the person doing it, Finnish adds -ja or -jä to the strong stem of a verb. The verb is vakoilla (to spy), which gives us the noun vakooja (a spy).
Learn Poliisi esti vakoojaa lähettämästä salaista koodia and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free