Word
Rehevä kasvillisuus kiinnostaa niin vaeltajia kuin tutkijoitakin.
Meaning
Lush vegetation interests both hikers and researchers.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Rehevä kasvillisuus kiinnostaa niin vaeltajia kuin tutkijoitakin.
tutkija
researcher
kuin
than / before (in 'ennen kuin') / like / as
-kin
also / too (suffix)
kiinnostaa
to interest
Questions & Answers about Rehevä kasvillisuus kiinnostaa niin vaeltajia kuin tutkijoitakin.
How exactly does the niin ... kuin ... -kin structure translate to 'both ... and', and where does the -kin go?
This correlative pair acts as 'both... and' but literally means something closer to 'as... as... also'. You place niin before the first item (vaeltajia) and kuin before the second item (tutkijoita). The clitic -kin (also/even) must be attached to the very end of the second item, after its case ending. So it becomes tutkija + ita (partitive plural) + kin.
Since this sentence means 'hikers and researchers are interested', why is the verb kiinnostaa in the singular?
Because Finnish flips the structure compared to the most common way we express this in English. The verb kiinnostaa means 'to interest'. The singular subject doing the action is actually rehevä kasvillisuus (lush vegetation), which governs the singular verb. The hikers and researchers are the objects receiving the interest.
Why are the objects vaeltajia and tutkijoitakin in the partitive plural?
The verb kiinnostaa (to interest) is a partitive verb. It expresses an ongoing emotion or state of mind, so its object—the person experiencing the interest—must always be in the partitive case. Here, the objects take the plural partitive endings -ia and -ita.
The word kasvillisuus looks quite long. How is it built from its root?