Breakdown of Milloin hän kertoo meille uudesta podcastista?
hän
he / she
me
we
uusi
new
kertoa
to tell
milloin
when
podcast
podcast
Questions & Answers about Milloin hän kertoo meille uudesta podcastista?
Why are both uudesta and podcastista in the elative (-sta) case here?
The verb kertoa (to tell) is a cognitive verb. In Finnish, when you tell, think, read, or hear about something, that subject matter goes into the elative case. Because adjectives must agree with the nouns they modify, both uusi (new) and the noun podcast take the -sta ending.
How does the word uusi (new) become uudesta?
Finnish words ending in -si usually change their stem before case endings are added. The basic stem for uusi is uute-. When you add the elative ending -sta, consonant gradation kicks in, softening the t to a d and giving us uudesta.
Why is there an extra -i- in podcastista?
Podcast is a foreign loanword that ends in a consonant. To make it fit Finnish pronunciation rules when adding case endings, a linking -i- is almost always added to the stem. So, podcast + i + sta becomes podcastista.
Why does the sentence use meille (to us) instead of a direct object case?
The verb kertoa requires the person receiving the information to be in the allative case (-lle, meaning 'to' or 'onto'). In Finnish grammar, you don't 'tell someone'—you 'tell to someone'.
The English translation says 'When will he tell', but isn't kertoo present tense?
Yes, kertoo is the present tense form. Finnish does not have a dedicated future tense. Instead, it relies on the present tense, and context—such as the question word milloin (when)—makes it perfectly clear that the action is going to happen in the future.
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