Breakdown of Mistä löysit tuon kauniin asunnon?
tuo
that
kaunis
beautiful
mistä
where from / what (of/about)
löytää
to find
Questions & Answers about Mistä löysit tuon kauniin asunnon?
Why does the sentence start with Mistä (from where) instead of Missä (where)?
This is a special rule (verb rection) for the verb löytää (to find). In English you find something in a place, but in Finnish you find something from a place. Therefore, you must use a "from" case—in this situation, the elative case. This makes the question word mistä (from where) rather than missä (in where).
The dictionary form of the verb is löytää. Why is the past tense löysit rather than "löydit"?
When building the past tense, the past tense marker -i- is added to the verb stem, replacing the final vowel (löytä- becomes löyti-). However, in Finnish, a t usually changes to an s when it sits directly in front of the past tense -i-. Because of this rule, löyti- changes to löysi-, and adding the "you" ending gives us löysit.
Why do the words tuon, kauniin, and asunnon all end in -n here?