Breakdown of Opettaja kysyi rehtorilta koulun ongelmista.
kysyä
to ask
opettaja
teacher
koulu
school
ongelma
problem
rehtori
principal
Questions & Answers about Opettaja kysyi rehtorilta koulun ongelmista.
Why do we use the ablative case ending -lta for rehtorilta?
This is the main rule for verbs of asking, like kysyä. In Finnish, you don't ask someone directly; you ask from someone. Therefore, the person being asked must be in the ablative case (-lta/-ltä).
Why is ongelmista in the elative case (-sta/-stä)?
The elative case translates well to "about" in this context. Just like you speak about something (puhua + elative), you also ask about something. The verb kysyä takes the elative case to mark the topic of the question.
How do we build the word ongelmista from its base form?
The base word is ongelma (problem). Because the teacher asked about plural problems, we need the plural marker -i-. The final -a of the base word drops out before the -i-, giving us the plural stem ongelmi-. Finally, we add the elative ending -sta to mean "about the problems".
Why is it koulun ongelmista instead of a compound word like kouluongelmista?
Using the genitive case (koulun) means "the school's problems", referring to the specific problems that this particular school is facing. A compound word like kouluongelmista would mean "school problems" as a general concept, such as bullying or learning difficulties.
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