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Questions & Answers about Koulutus kestää kaksi vuotta.
What does koulutus mean in English, and what role does it play in this sentence?
Koulutus translates as “training,” “education,” or “course.” In this sentence it’s the subject (nominative case) – it’s what “lasts two years.”
What does the verb kestää mean here, and what case does it take?
Kestää means “to last” or “to take (time).” When you talk about how long something lasts, the time expression is put in the partitive case. So kaksi vuotta is the partitive object of kestää.
Why is vuotta in the partitive case instead of nominative?
Finnish uses the partitive case for durations after verbs like kestää. On top of that, when you count with numbers (kaksi, kolme, etc.), the counted noun normally appears in partitive singular.
Why isn’t there an article like “a” or “the” before koulutus?
Finnish has no articles. You simply say koulutus whether you mean “a training,” “the training” or “training in general.” Context tells you if it’s definite or indefinite.
How would you ask “How long does the training last?” in Finnish?
The most natural question is Kuinka kauan koulutus kestää?
You can also say Miten pitkään koulutus kestää? Both mean “How long does the training last?”
How do you change the sentence to past tense?
Replace kestää with its past form kesti. You get: Koulutus kesti kaksi vuotta. (“The training lasted two years.”)
What case is kaksi in, and does it change in other cases?
Here kaksi is in the nominative. Finnish numerals themselves decline for case: for example, in genitive you’d say kahden vuoden (“of two years”).
Is there another way to express “lasts two years” in Finnish?
Yes. You can say Koulutus kestää kahden vuoden ajan.
In that variant kahden vuoden is the genitive of “two years” and ajan literally means “for the time (of).” This form is a bit more explicit or formal.