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Questions & Answers about Lehti kertoo mielenkiintoisia uutisia kaupungista.
How do you form the third person singular present tense kertoo, and what does it indicate?
kertoo is the third person singular present of kertoa. The present stem is kerro- (note the doubled r, from kertoa), and you add the personal ending -o to get kertoo. It indicates that “he/she/it reports” or “tells” in the present tense. In our sentence, Lehti is the subject, so kertoo means “the newspaper reports.”
Why is mielenkiintoisia uutisia in the partitive plural, and how do you form those?
mielenkiintoisia uutisia uses the partitive plural because:
1) kertoa requires a partitive object (you “report something”).
2) The news is indefinite or partial, not a complete, defined set.
Formation steps:
- mielenkiintoinen (interesting) → partitive plural: replace -inen with -isia → mielenkiintoisia.
- uutinen (news item) → nominative plural uutiset, then partitive plural: drop -et and add -ia → uutisia.
What case is kaupungista, what does -sta express, and why use it here?
kaupungista is in the elative case. The suffix -sta (or -stä after front vowels) means “out of” or “from.” Here kaupungista literally means “from the city,” but in context uutisia kaupungista conveys “news about/from the city.” Finnish often uses the elative to express “about” when talking about the source of information.
Why is there no pronoun like se or hän before kertoo? Are subject pronouns optional in Finnish?
Yes, subject pronouns are usually omitted in Finnish because the verb ending already tells you the person and number. kertoo alone implies “he/she/it.” You can add se (it) or hän (he/she) for emphasis or clarity, but it’s not required.
How flexible is Finnish word order? Could you move kaupungista to the front?
Finnish has a relatively free word order to indicate focus or emphasis. You could say Kaupungista lehti kertoo mielenkiintoisia uutisia. to emphasize kaupungista (“As for the city…”). The overall meaning remains the same, though the information structure shifts.
Could I say Lehti kertoo mielenkiintoiset uutiset kaupungista instead? How would this change the meaning or correctness?
That version is grammatically possible but stylistically different:
- mielenkiintoiset uutiset is nominative plural (definite object), implying “the interesting news” as a complete set.
- The original partitive (mielenkiintoisia uutisia) is more natural when you talk about unspecified pieces of news. Using nominative suggests you’re reporting all of “the interesting news,” which sounds less typical in news contexts.
What’s the difference between kertoa and sanoa? When do you use each?
- kertoa means “to tell” or “to report” information, stories or news. It takes a partitive object (kertoa jotain).
- sanoa means “to say” or “to state” something someone has spoken. It’s used for direct or indirect quotes: hän sanoi, että…
Use kertoa uutisia (report news) and sanoa when you want to relay exactly what someone said.