Breakdown of Tykkään tästä siveltimestä, koska se on pehmeä.
tämä
this
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
koska
because
tykätä
to like (colloquial)
pehmeä
soft
sivellin
the paintbrush
Questions & Answers about Tykkään tästä siveltimestä, koska se on pehmeä.
Since this lesson is about using the adessive (-lla/-llä) for tools, why is the paintbrush in the elative case (siveltimestä) here instead of the adessive (siveltimellä)?
Because the verb tykätä (to like) dictates the case here. It always requires the elative case (-sta/-stä) for the thing you like, overriding the tool rule. If you wanted to express using the brush as a tool ("I paint with this paintbrush"), you would indeed use the adessive: Maalaan tällä siveltimellä.
How do we get from the basic dictionary word for paintbrush to siveltimestä?
The basic form is sivellin. Nouns ending in -in (like puhelin or avain) change that ending to -ime- when you add a case suffix. So sivellin becomes the stem siveltime-, to which we add the elative ending -stä.
Why does the word for "this" change to tästä instead of staying as tämä?
In Finnish, pronouns and adjectives must match the noun they describe in both case and number. Since siveltimestä is in the elative case, the pronoun tämä (this) must also take the elative form, becoming tästä.
Could I use pitää instead of tykätä to say "I like" in this sentence?
Absolutely. Tykkään is very common in everyday speech, while pidän is the standard written form. Conveniently, both verbs require the exact same elative case (-sta/-stä), so you could simply say: Pidän tästä siveltimestä, koska se on pehmeä.
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