Breakdown of Kirjoitan aina haaveeni päiväkirjaani.
aina
always
kirjoittaa
to write
päiväkirja
the diary
haave
the dream
Questions & Answers about Kirjoitan aina haaveeni päiväkirjaani.
Why aren't the words for "I" and "my" used in this sentence?
In Finnish, the pronouns minä (I) and minun (my) are often dropped because the verb endings and possessive suffixes already tell us who is involved. Here, the verb kirjoitan ends in -n (I), and the nouns haaveeni and päiväkirjaani both end in the possessive suffix -ni (my).
How do we know haaveeni means "my dreams" (plural) when there is no plural marker?
When you add a possessive suffix like -ni to a nominative plural word ending in -t, that -t disappears. The plural haaveet (dreams) plus -ni becomes haaveeni. The singular haave plus -ni is also haaveeni, so you have to rely on the context to know whether it means one dream or many.
Why is päiväkirjaani in the illative ("into") case instead of the inessive ("in") case?
In Finnish, writing is often treated as a direction of movement. You are moving information from your mind onto the paper. Because of this, when you write something in a notebook or diary, you use the illative case to show the text is going "into" the päiväkirja.
How is the word päiväkirjaani formed from the base word päiväkirja?