Breakdown of Bussi oli jo täysi, kun tulimme pysäkille.
olla
to be
bussi
bus
pysäkki
stop
tulla
to come
jo
already
kun
when (conjunction)
täysi
full, whole
Questions & Answers about Bussi oli jo täysi, kun tulimme pysäkille.
Why is täysi in the nominative case here instead of the partitive täyttä?
The case of the predicative adjective (the adjective describing the subject after the verb 'to be') depends on the type of noun. Because bussi is a countable, individual object, the adjective takes the nominative case (täysi). If the subject were an uncountable mass noun, like water or air, you would use the partitive (täyttä).
Why do we use the allative case (pysäkille) instead of the illative case (pysäkkiin) for arriving at the bus stop?
Finnish conceptualizes a bus stop (pysäkki) as an open area or surface rather than an enclosed space. Because of this, you arrive 'onto' the stop using the external local case (-lle) rather than 'into' it.
Could I use the word koska instead of kun to mean 'when' in this sentence?
No, koska primarily means 'because' when used as a conjunction linking two clauses. While koska can mean 'when' in a direct question (like 'When does the bus arrive?'), you must use kun to say 'at the time that' in a statement.
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