Breakdown of Multa on kosteaa, joten voin lisätä lannoitetta.
olla
to be
voida
can, to be able to
joten
so, therefore
lisätä
to add
Questions & Answers about Multa on kosteaa, joten voin lisätä lannoitetta.
Wait, I thought multa meant "from me" in spoken Finnish. Why does it mean "soil" here?
Context is everything! While multa is the common spoken form of minulta (from me), it is also a completely standard noun meaning "soil" or "potting earth". You can tell which one it is here because "from me is moist" wouldn't make sense as the subject of the sentence.
Why is the adjective kosteaa (moist) in the partitive case rather than the basic form kostea?
Because multa (soil) is an uncountable word, also known as a mass noun. In Finnish, when you use the verb olla (to be) to describe an uncountable substance, the describing adjective must be in the partitive case. If you were describing a countable noun, like a towel, it would be in the basic nominative case: Pyyhe on kostea.
Why does lannoitetta (fertilizer) also need to be in the partitive case here?
It is acting as the object of the verb lisätä (to add). Because you are adding an unspecified or partial amount of fertilizer (which is another mass noun), the object takes the partitive case. If you were adding a specific, whole thing, like "the bag of fertilizer", you would use the genitive/accusative case.
Is lisätä (to add) a Type 4 verb?