Word
Minulla on kaksi kiveä: toinen on sileä ja pyöreä, toinen on kulmikas.
Meaning
I have two stones: one is smooth and round, the other is angular.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Minulla on kaksi kiveä: toinen on sileä ja pyöreä, toinen on kulmikas.
olla
to be
minä
I
ja
and
kaksi
two
Questions & Answers about Minulla on kaksi kiveä: toinen on sileä ja pyöreä, toinen on kulmikas.
Why do we use toinen ... toinen here instead of the Finnish words for 'one' and 'another'?
When talking about a specific pair of items, Finnish uses the structure toinen ... toinen to mean 'one ... the other'. Even though toinen normally means 'second', repeating it is the standard way to contrast two things once you have established there are exactly two, like the kaksi kiveä in this sentence.
Why is the word for stone (kiveä) in the partitive case instead of the plural?
In Finnish, you do not use the plural form after a number. Whenever you have a number greater than one in its basic form (like kaksi), the noun immediately following it must be in the partitive singular. The basic word is kivi, and its partitive form is kiveä.
Why aren't the adjectives sileä, pyöreä, and kulmikas in the partitive case to match kiveä?
Because they are not directly attached to the number two. In the second half of the sentence, the subject of each clause is toinen (meaning 'one'). Since toinen is in the basic nominative case, the adjectives describing it must also be in the nominative case.
How is the adjective kulmikas built from simpler words?