Breakdown of Ne unohti kullan kajuuttaan!
he
they
unohtaa
to forget
kulta
gold
kajuutta
cabin (on a ship or boat)
Questions & Answers about Ne unohti kullan kajuuttaan!
Why is it kajuuttaan (into the cabin) and not kajuutassa (in the cabin)?
This is the main trick with verbs like unohtaa (to forget), jäädä (to stay), and jättää (to leave). In Finnish, you don't forget something in a place; you forget it into a place. Because the action results in the gold ending up there, Finnish requires the illative case (kajuuttaan).
Why is the verb unohti (forgot) in the singular 'he/she' form instead of the 'they' form?
In spoken Finnish, it is very common to use the 3rd person singular verb form with the plural pronoun ne. In standard written Finnish, this would be He unohtivat, but in everyday speech, Ne unohti is exactly what you will hear.
Doesn't ne mean 'they' for things and animals? Why is it used for people here?
You are right that in strict standard Finnish, he is for people and ne is for everything else. However, in everyday spoken Finnish, ne is almost universally used for groups of people as well!
Gold (kulta) is a material, so why is it kullan instead of the partitive kultaa?
If they forgot an unspecified amount of gold (some gold), it would be the partitive kultaa. Because it is kullan (the accusative object form that looks exactly like the genitive), it means they forgot all of the specific gold they had in mind.
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