Word
En ostanut tuota saareketta, koska se ei ollut puolta kapeampi.
Meaning
I did not buy that kitchen island, because it was not half as wide.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of En ostanut tuota saareketta, koska se ei ollut puolta kapeampi.
olla
to be
tuo
that
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
koska
because
Questions & Answers about En ostanut tuota saareketta, koska se ei ollut puolta kapeampi.
In English, we say "half as wide," but the Finnish uses kapeampi (narrower). Why not leveämpi (wider)?
When English says "half as wide," it means the object is 50% smaller in width. Finnish expresses this mathematically as "narrower by a half" (puolta kapeampi). If you translated word-for-word and said puolta leveämpi, a Finn would understand it as "wider by a half" (meaning 150% of the original width). For fractions less than one, you must use the adjective that describes the shrinking direction (narrower, smaller, shorter).
Why is the word for "half" in the partitive case (puolta) here?
In Finnish comparisons, you can express the exact amount of difference by putting the measure in the partitive case right before the comparative adjective. Because of this rule, puolta kapeampi literally translates to "narrower by a half."
Why is tuota saareketta in the partitive case instead of the total object form tuon saarekkeen?
It is the direct object of the verb ostaa (to buy), and the action is negative (En ostanut). In Finnish, the object of a negative verb must always be in the partitive case, regardless of whether you intended to buy the whole thing or just a part of it.
The word saareke (kitchen island) looks a lot like saari (island). How are they related?