Learn Finnish: Sain taikinan tehtyä, mutta se meni silti hukkaan. - I got the dough made, but it went to waste anyway.

This is an idiomatic state change matching the lesson's theme. The verb mennä (to go) governs the illative case (here, the -an ending) to express entering a new abstract state or condition. The phrase mennä hukkaan translates to "to go to waste."

Does the word hukka mean "waste" on its own?

Not exactly. Hukka historically means "loss" or "ruin" (and is also an old, poetic word for "wolf"). In modern Finnish, you rarely see it as a standalone noun. It mainly survives in state-change and location idioms like mennä hukkaan (to go to waste / get lost) and olla hukassa (to be lost).

Why do we use the passive participle tehtyä after sain?

This sentence uses a very common Finnish structure: saada + object + passive past participle in the partitive case. It means "to manage to do" or "to get something completed." Therefore, sain taikinan tehtyä emphasizes the successful completion of the task ("I managed to finish making the dough"), rather than just saying "I made the dough" (tein taikinan).

Why does silti come between meni and hukkaan instead of at the end of the sentence?

In Finnish, modifying adverbs like silti (anyway, still) usually sit right after the verb they modify (meni). While saying mutta se meni hukkaan silti is grammatically possible, splitting the verb and its illative state-change phrase with the adverb sounds much more natural and idiomatic.