Breakdown of Minä etsin kaksiota uudesta kerrostalosta.
minä
I
uusi
new
etsiä
to look for
kerrostalo
apartment building
kaksio
one-bedroom apartment
Questions & Answers about Minä etsin kaksiota uudesta kerrostalosta.
Why is it kerrostalosta (from an apartment building) when the English translation says "in an apartment building"?
This is a special rule (verb rection) for the verb etsiä (to search). In Finnish, when you search for, find, or buy something, the location is expressed as the place you are getting it from (the mistä form), rather than where the searching happens. Therefore, we use the elative case -sta instead of the inessive -ssa.
Why is the word for "new" in the form uudesta?
Adjectives in Finnish must match the case of the noun they describe. Since kerrostalo is in the elative case (kerrostalosta), the adjective uusi must also be in the elative case, which becomes uudesta. Notice how the stem of uusi changes to uude- before adding the ending!
Why is kaksiota in the partitive case?
The verb etsiä almost always takes a partitive object. This is because searching is an ongoing, incomplete action, and you haven't necessarily found the apartment yet. For comparison, if you were saying you found the apartment, the object would take the accusative form: Minä löysin kaksion.
What exactly counts as a kaksio?
It translates to a "two-room apartment," but in Finland, this means an apartment with a living room and one bedroom (kitchens and bathrooms aren't counted as rooms). The word is built from the number kaksi (two). Similarly, a studio apartment is a yksiö and a three-room apartment is a kolmio.
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