Questions & Answers about Tämä on diplomaattinen ongelma.
How would I add "According to the news" to this sentence using this lesson's grammar?
You would use the postposition mukaan (according to), which requires the preceding noun to be in the genitive case. "The news" is the plural word uutiset, and its plural genitive is uutisten. The sentence becomes: Uutisten mukaan tämä on diplomaattinen ongelma.
If I wanted to say this issue must be solved "through diplomacy," how would I use kautta?
The postposition kautta (via, through, by means of) also requires the genitive case. The noun for diplomacy is diplomatia, so its genitive is diplomatian. You could say: Ongelma täytyy ratkaista diplomatian kautta (The problem must be solved through diplomacy).
Why does the adjective diplomaattinen end in -nen, and how does it inflect?
The suffix -nen is the standard way to turn international loan nouns into Finnish adjectives (like magneettinen or systeeminen). When you put it into another case, the -nen changes to -se-. For example, "a solution to a diplomatic problem" would use the illative case: ratkaisu diplomaattiseen ongelmaan.
The word ongelma ends in -ma. Is this a specific type of noun?
Yes, the -ma or -mä suffix often indicates a noun derived from a verb. Interestingly, ongelma is historically related to the verb onkia (to angle / to fish), originally referring to a tricky situation you have to "fish" for an answer to. It inflects straightforwardly like any regular word ending in -a.
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