Breakdown of Pesetämme aina ikkunat keväällä.
aina
always
ikkuna
window
kevät
spring
pesettää
to have washed
Questions & Answers about Pesetämme aina ikkunat keväällä.
How is the verb pesetämme formed from the basic verb pestä?
The basic verb is pestä (to wash). To create the curative verb meaning that you have someone else wash something, you take the vowel stem pese- and add the suffix -ttää, resulting in pesettää. Finally, you add the first-person plural ending -mme to match the subject we, making it pesetämme.
How does pesetämme differ from just using the passive voice?
You could use a passive like ikkunat pestään (the windows are washed), but that does not specify who arranged the washing. The curative verb pesetämme explicitly tells us that we (the subject) actively arranged and likely paid for someone else to perform the task.
Why is the object ikkunat in the nominative plural instead of the partitive plural (ikkunoita)?
A plural object takes the nominative plural form when the action is viewed as complete and affects a whole set of things. Here, ikkunat implies we are getting all the relevant windows of the house washed. If you used the partitive ikkunoita, it would mean we are only having an undefined amount of windows washed, rather than the entire set.
Why does keväällä use the -llä ending to express time?
In Finnish, seasons use the adessive case (-lla or -llä) to express when something happens. The base word is kevät (spring). Its stem undergoes changes to become kevää-, and adding the ending gives us keväällä. This matches how we say kesällä (in the summer) and talvella (in the winter).
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