Breakdown of Hän auttaa minua kertaamalla sanat minun kanssani.
minä
I
hän
he / she
sana
word
auttaa
to help
kanssa
with
kerrata
to review (study, repeat)
Questions & Answers about Hän auttaa minua kertaamalla sanat minun kanssani.
How do we get the form kertaamalla from the verb kerrata?
This is the third infinitive adessive, which expresses how an action is done (translating to "by doing"). To form it, take the strong stem of the verb kerrata (to review), which is kertaa-, add the third infinitive marker -ma-, and finally the adessive ending -lla. Together, kertaamalla means "by reviewing".
Why is the object sanat in the nominative plural here, rather than the partitive?
The third infinitive behaves like a regular verb when it comes to objects. Here, the reviewing applies to a specific, complete set of words ("the words"), so it takes a total object. Total objects in the plural are always in the nominative plural form (ending in -t). If it meant "reviewing some words", it would be the partitive plural sanoja.
Why does the first half of the sentence use minua?
Why is there a -ni at the end of kanssani?
Kanssa (with) is a postposition that follows a word in the genitive case (here, minun). In standard Finnish, when a postposition follows a personal pronoun like minun, you must attach the corresponding possessive suffix to the postposition. The suffix for "my" or "me" is -ni, making it minun kanssani.
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