Word
Pidän kummastakin koirasta, mutta toinen on vanha ja toinen on vielä pentu.
Meaning
I like both dogs, but one is old and the other is still a puppy.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Pidän kummastakin koirasta, mutta toinen on vanha ja toinen on vielä pentu.
olla
to be
koira
dog
mutta
but
ja
and
Questions & Answers about Pidän kummastakin koirasta, mutta toinen on vanha ja toinen on vielä pentu.
Wait, doesn't toinen mean 'second'? Why does it mean 'one ... the other' here?
You are right that toinen usually means 'second' or 'other'. But when you use it twice in a row like this (toinen ... toinen), it acts as a correlative pair meaning 'one ... the other'. It is the standard way in Finnish to contrast two things you just mentioned.
Why are both kummastakin and koirasta in the -sta (elative) case?
The verb pitää (to like) always requires the thing you like to be in the elative case, ending in -sta or -stä. Since you like both dogs, both the pronoun (kumpikin) and the noun (koira) must take this ending, becoming kummastakin koirasta.
How exactly do we get the word kummastakin from the base word for 'both'?
The base word is kumpikin, meaning 'each of the two' or 'both'. It is made of kumpi (which of the two) plus the suffix -kin (also or and). When you put it in a new case, only the kumpi part changes. Here it becomes kummasta, and the -kin suffix is tacked onto the very end: kummasta + kin = kummastakin.
Could I have used molemmat (both) instead of kummastakin here?