Breakdown of Tietä korjattaessa täytyy käyttää kiertotietä.
tie
road
täytyä
to have to
korjata
to fix
käyttää
to use
kiertotie
detour
Questions & Answers about Tietä korjattaessa täytyy käyttää kiertotietä.
How is korjattaessa formed to mean "when [it] is being repaired"?
This is the passive temporal construction. You form it by taking the passive past participle (korjattu), changing the final -u or -y to an -a or -ä to get the stem (korjatta-), and then adding the inessive ending -essa or -essä.
Why is tietä in the partitive case?
Tietä is the object of the passive temporal construction (korjattaessa). A strict rule in Finnish grammar is that the object of a passive temporal construction must always be in the partitive case, even if it refers to a whole, specific thing.
The English translation says "you must use", but there is no word for "you" in the Finnish sentence. Why?
The sentence uses the necessity verb täytyy (must) without a genitive subject (like sinun). This creates a generic sentence (sometimes called the zero person). It means "one must use" or "people in general must use" the detour.
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