Word
Sairaanhoitajan täytyi antaa ensiapua heti.
Meaning
The nurse had to give first aid immediately.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Sairaanhoitajan täytyi antaa ensiapua heti.
antaa
to give
heti
immediately
täytyä
to have to
sairaanhoitaja
nurse
Questions & Answers about Sairaanhoitajan täytyi antaa ensiapua heti.
Why is the verb täytyi used instead of täytyy, and how does it change if 'I' had to give first aid?
Täytyi is the past tense of the obligation verb täytyy, meaning 'had to'. These necessity verbs always stay in the third-person singular form, so the verb itself doesn't change for different people. If you wanted to say 'I had to', you would change the subject to the genitive (minun) but keep the verb exactly the same: Minun täytyi...
Why is the subject sairaanhoitajan in the genitive case (ending in -n)?
In Finnish, necessity verbs like täytyy, pitää, and their past forms like täytyi require their subject to be in the genitive case. This is a core rule for expressing obligation, which you can think of literally as 'It was necessary of the nurse to give...'
If necessity verbs usually drop the object's genitive -n, why is ensiapua in the partitive case here?
While necessity verbs do change how 'total' objects behave, the rule for uncountable or abstract mass nouns always overrides that. Ensiapu (first aid) is an uncountable concept here, so it must stay in the partitive case (ensiapua), just as it would in a regular sentence.
How is the word sairaanhoitaja (nurse) formed?