Learn Finnish: Poikkeuksellinen tulos ei edes järkyttänyt opasta. - The exceptional result did not even shock the guide.

In negative sentences, edes typically follows the negative verb (ei) and goes just before the word it emphasizes. Here, it is emphasizing the verb järkyttänyt (the result didn't even shock the guide). If you wanted to emphasize that not even the guide was shocked, you would place it right before the guide: ei järkyttänyt edes opasta.

Why is the verb järkyttänyt used here instead of the regular past tense järkytti?

Because this is a negative past tense sentence. A great rule to remember is that to say someone 'did not' do something, you use the negative verb (ei) plus the past participle form of the verb, which ends in -nut or -nyt. So järkytti (shocked) becomes ei järkyttänyt (did not shock).

Why is opas (the guide) in the partitive case (opasta)?

There are actually two rules overlapping here, and both require the partitive! First, this is a negative sentence, and negative statements always take a partitive object. Second, järkyttää (to shock) is an emotion verb. Verbs that describe feelings or emotional reactions almost always take a partitive object in Finnish anyway.

Poikkeuksellinen is a really long word. How is it built?