Questions & Answers about Kuinka paljon hiuslakka maksaa?
Could I use miten instead of kuinka in this sentence?
Yes, miten paljon is also perfectly correct and very common in spoken Finnish. However, kuinka paljon is the traditional and slightly more formal way to ask about a measurable quantity or degree, such as a price.
How is the word hiuslakka formed?
It is a compound word made of hius (a single hair) and lakka (varnish or lacquer). Notice that Finnish uses the singular root hius to build this compound, even though people usually talk about hair using the plural form hiukset.
I remember learning that maksaa means 'to pay'. How do I know it means 'to cost' here?
The verb maksaa is used for both 'to pay' and 'to cost' depending on the sentence structure. When a person is the subject doing the action, it means 'to pay'. When a product or item like hiuslakka is the subject, it translates to 'to cost'.
Since hairspray is a mass noun, shouldn't it be in the partitive case (hiuslakkaa) instead of the nominative (hiuslakka)?
You use the nominative hiuslakka here because you are asking about the price of the product as a complete, countable unit (like one specific can) or as a general category of items. If you were referring to an undefined amount of the liquid itself, you would use the partitive.