Questions & Answers about Minä ilahduin tästä lahjasta.
Why is the gift in the elative case (tästä lahjasta), translating to "by this gift"?
Many Finnish emotion verbs require the cause of the emotion to be in the elative case (-sta/-stä). The verb ilahtua (to become glad/delighted) works this way. You can think of the emotion as literally coming out of or originating from the gift!
Is the verb ilahtua related to other words for happiness, like iloinen?
Yes! They both come from the root noun ilo (joy). Finnish often builds verbs meaning "to become [adjective or noun]" by adding the ending -tua or -tyä. So ilahtua literally means "to become joyful".
Why does the verb stem change from ilahtu- to ilahdui-?
There are two things happening here. First, consonant gradation changes the strong ht to a weak hd because the syllable is closed by the -n personal ending. Second, the -i- is the past tense marker, showing that you were delighted, rather than you are delighted (ilahdun).
Why does the word tämä (this) become tästä?
In Finnish, demonstrative pronouns like "this" must always agree with the noun they describe. Because the verb forces the noun lahja into the elative case (lahjasta), the pronoun tämä must also take the elative ending and become tästä.