Word
Tarvitsen puhtaat vaatteet työhön.
Meaning
I need clean clothes for work.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
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Questions & Answers about Tarvitsen puhtaat vaatteet työhön.
Why is there no subject pronoun minä in the sentence?
In Finnish the verb ending itself indicates the subject. Tarvitsen already means “I need,” so you normally drop minä. You could say Minä tarvitsen puhtaat vaatteet työhön for emphasis, but it’s not required.
Why is the object puhtaat vaatteet in the nominative plural and not in the partitive?
Finnish distinguishes between complete and partial objects. When you need a specific, complete set of clothes, you use the nominative (or accusative) plural: puhtaat vaatteet. If you just mean “some clean clothes” in an indefinite amount, you’d use the partitive plural: puhtaita vaatteita.
How do adjectives agree with nouns in Finnish?
Adjectives in Finnish take the same case, number, and (if needed) gradation as the noun they modify. Here puhtaat is in the nominative (or accusative) plural to match vaatteet in the nominative (accusative) plural.
How did we get tarvitsen from the infinitive tarvita?
Tarvita is a type I verb. Its stem is tarvit- (not tarvi-) when forming the present tense to avoid a vowel cluster. You add the 1 st person singular ending -sen, giving tarvit-sen → tarvitsen.