Word
Olen nukkuvinani, mutta oikeasti selaan nettiä.
Meaning
I am pretending to sleep, but really I am browsing the net.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Olen nukkuvinani, mutta oikeasti selaan nettiä.
olla
to be
mutta
but
nukkua
to sleep
netti
internet
Questions & Answers about Olen nukkuvinani, mutta oikeasti selaan nettiä.
How exactly does the word nukkuvinani break down to mean "pretending to sleep"?
This is the core of the quasi-construction (kvasirakenne). It combines the present active participle of nukkua (nukkuva) with a special plural stem (-vina-) and a possessive suffix. Because the subject is "I" (olen), it takes the first-person singular possessive suffix -ni, resulting in nukkuvinani.
If I wanted to say "She is pretending to sleep", how would this construction change?
Both the main verb olla and the possessive suffix on the participle must agree with the new subject. For "she", you would say Hän on nukkuvinaan. The verb changes to on, and the suffix changes to the third-person possessive ending -an (which blends with the stem into -vinaan).
Why is nettiä in the partitive case?
The verb selata (to browse) usually takes a partitive object because the action is ongoing and continuous. You are engaged in the activity of browsing without a specific, completed endpoint, so netti (the net) takes the partitive ending -ä.
As a quick refresher, how do we get the form selaan from the dictionary verb?