Minä haen ruokaa kaupasta.

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Breakdown of Minä haen ruokaa kaupasta.

• kauppa: the store
• ruoka: the food
• -sta: from

Questions & Answers about Minä haen ruokaa kaupasta.

Why is ruokaa in the partitive case instead of ruoka?

In this sentence you’re fetching an unspecified amount of food (“some food”), so Finnish uses the partitive case to mark an indefinite or incomplete object.

• Base form: ruoka (“food”)
• Partitive: ruokaa (“some food”)

The partitive is also common with verbs that express acquiring or consuming an indeterminate quantity.

Why is kaupasta used instead of kauppa?

You need the elative case to express motion “from” a place.

• Nominative: kauppa (“store”)
• Elative: kaupasta (“from the store”)

Finnish adds -sta/-stä to show movement out of somewhere, so kaupasta literally means “out of the store.”

How do you get haen from the infinitive hakea?