Learn Finnish: Minun pitää kastella orkideani kerran viikossa.

Minun pitää kastella orkideani kerran viikossa.

I must water my orchid once a week.

Breakdown of Minun pitää kastella orkideani kerran viikossa.

Questions & Answers about Minun pitää kastella orkideani kerran viikossa.

How does kerran viikossa express "once a week"?

To say how often something happens, Finnish uses the quantity (kerran, "once") followed by the time period in the inessive case (-ssa or -ssä, meaning "in"). So kerran viikossa literally translates to "one time in a week".

Where does the word kerran come from?

It comes from the word kerta ("a time" or "occasion"). When saying "once", Finnish uses the genitive form kerran. For other numbers, you use the number plus the partitive form of the word, like kaksi kertaa ("two times").

Why isn't the object orkideani in the partitive or genitive case?

Normally, a whole object might take a genitive -n ending. However, in a sentence with a necessity verb like pitää, the object takes the nominative (basic) form. Here, it is the basic word orkidea with the possessive suffix -ni ("my") attached.

As a refresher, why do we say Minun pitää instead of Minä pidän?

When pitää is used to mean "must" or "have to", it is a necessity verb. The person who has to do the action is put in the genitive case (Minun), and the verb is frozen in the third-person singular form. If you said Minä pidän, it would mean "I like" or "I hold"!