Breakdown of Kirjoitan yleensä tiivistelmän muistiinpanoista.
kirjoittaa
to write
yleensä
generally, in general
muistiinpano
note
tiivistelmä
summary
Questions & Answers about Kirjoitan yleensä tiivistelmän muistiinpanoista.
Why is tiivistelmän in the genitive-looking accusative case instead of the partitive?
In Finnish, the object case depends on whether the action is seen as complete. Using tiivistelmän means you usually write a whole summary from start to finish. If you used the partitive (tiivistelmää), it would mean the action is ongoing or incomplete, like saying "I am (currently) writing a summary".
Why does "from the notes" use the elative case (muistiinpanoista)?
The elative case (-sta/-stä) literally means "out of". When you create a summary in Finnish, you are metaphorically building it out of your notes. While in English we often say "a summary of the notes", Finnish treats the notes as the raw material the summary is extracted from. Notice also the plural marker -i- before the -sta ending.
How is the word muistiinpano (note) formed?
It is a very logical compound word! It combines muistiin (into memory, the illative case of muisti) and pano (the act of putting or placing). So a "note" is literally a "putting into memory".
Is it possible to change the word order and put yleensä at the beginning?
Yes, Finnish word order is flexible. Yleensä kirjoitan tiivistelmän muistiinpanoista is perfectly natural and slightly emphasizes the "usually" aspect. Placing yleensä right after the verb, as in the example sentence, is just a very neutral, standard way to position adverbs of time or frequency.