Breakdown of Kävin parantajan luona juotuani taikajuoman.
juoda
to drink
käydä
to visit, to go (and come back)
luona
at someone's place
parantaja
healer
Questions & Answers about Kävin parantajan luona juotuani taikajuoman.
How is juotuani built to mean "after I drank"?
This uses the past temporal construction. You take the passive past participle of juoda (juotu), add the partitive ending (-a), and attach the possessive suffix for "I" (-ni). It compactly expresses that this action was completely finished before the main event took place.
Could I just say kun olin juonut instead of juotuani?
Absolutely. Kun olin juonut taikajuoman means the exact same thing. The juotuani structure is just a more elegant, streamlined way to show the sequence of events, and you will see it very often in written Finnish.
Why is the object taikajuoman in the genitive/accusative case here?
The object case inside a temporal construction depends entirely on the main clause. Because the main verb kävin has a regular personal subject (the implied "I"), a total object takes the standard -n ending. If the main clause were passive or imperative, the object here would be in the nominative (taikajuoma).
Why do we use the postposition luona instead of just making the healer the direct object?
The verb käydä (to visit / to go and come back) doesn't take a person as a direct object. When you visit a person in Finnish, you use their genitive form plus luona, which literally means you visited "at the place of" the healer.