Erosimme kymmenen vuotta sitten, ja minun piti muuttaa.
We divorced ten years ago, and I had to move.
Breakdown of Erosimme kymmenen vuotta sitten, ja minun piti muuttaa.
minä
I
ja
and
kymmenen
ten
vuosi
year
pitää
must / have to
erota
to break up
sitten
ago
muuttaa
to move (relocate)
Questions & Answers about Erosimme kymmenen vuotta sitten, ja minun piti muuttaa.
Why do we use the phrase "kymmenen vuotta" before "sitten" instead of the genitive case?
The postposition sitten (ago) requires the time period before it to be in the basic nominative form. Here, the number kymmenen is nominative, which forces the noun vuotta into the partitive case. If we were saying "in ten years" using kuluttua, we would need the genitive case: kymmenen vuoden kuluttua.
Why is it "minun piti" instead of "minä pidin"?
This uses the Finnish necessive structure to say that someone "had to" do something. In this structure, the person who has the obligation is put in the genitive case (minun), and the verb pitää is always frozen in the third-person singular (piti for the past tense).
I remember "erota" meaning "to resign". Does it also mean "to divorce"?
Yes! The core meaning of the verb erota is "to separate". Depending on the context, it can mean to divorce a spouse, break up with a partner, or resign from a job or organization.
Why is the word "vuotta" in the partitive case here?
While the postposition sitten takes a nominative time phrase, the internal grammar of that phrase still applies. In Finnish, any number greater than one requires the noun following it to be in the partitive singular. So, the nominative number kymmenen is followed by the partitive vuotta (from vuosi).
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