Minä luin sata sivua eilen.

I read a hundred pages yesterday.

Breakdown of Minä luin sata sivua eilen.

• minä: I
• lukea: to read
• eilen: yesterday
• sivu: the page
• sata: one hundred

Questions & Answers about Minä luin sata sivua eilen.

What does Minä do here, and can I leave it out?

Minä is the 1st person singular pronoun (“I”), marking the subject. Finnish verbs already encode person and number, so you can drop the pronoun without losing meaning.
Example without pronoun:
Luin sata sivua eilen.
That still means “I read a hundred pages yesterday.” Including Minä simply adds emphasis or clarity.

How is the past tense of lukea formed, and why is it luin?

lukea belongs to verb type I in Finnish. To form the imperfect (simple past):

1. Replace the -ea/-eä infinitive ending with -i- → gives stem luki-
2. Apply consonant gradation: k → ∅ → lui-
3. Add the 1st person singular ending -n → luin
   So luin literally means “I read” in the past tense.

Why is sivua in the partitive singular, and why isn’t it sivut or sivuja?

When you use a cardinal number greater than one to count something, Finnish puts the noun in the partitive singular. Thus:
sata sivua = “a hundred pages”

• sivut would be nominative plural (“the pages” as a defined set)
• sivuja is partitive plural (used for an indefinite, non-numeric quantity)
  The numeral sata itself stays in the nominative when used for counting.

Why does the object of the verb take the partitive case here?

Finnish uses the partitive case for objects when:

• The verb is in the imperfect (showing an ongoing or bounded past action)
• There’s an indefinite or partial amount
• A numeral > 1 is involved (forces the noun into partitive singular)
  Even though you read exactly 100 pages, the rule “numeral > 1 → partitive singular” applies, and the imperfect also favors partitive for the object.

Why is eilen placed at the end, and can I move it or other elements around?

Finnish has relatively free word order thanks to case marking. The neutral order here is Subject–Verb–Object–Adverbial (SVOA):
Minä luin sata sivua eilen.
You can move eilen to the front for emphasis:
Eilen luin sata sivua.
Or highlight the object by starting with it:
Sata sivua luin eilen.
The roles stay clear because each word carries its case ending.

How do you say “a” or “the” pages in Finnish? Where are the articles?

Finnish does not have articles like a or the. Definiteness or indefiniteness is understood from context or added words:

• sivu can mean “a page” or “the page” depending on situation
• To say “these pages”: nämä sivut
• To say “some pages”: joitakin sivuja
  You don’t insert a separate word for “a” or “the.”

Why use the imperfect luin instead of the perfect olen lukenut?

• The imperfect (luin) is used for completed past actions tied to a definite time (here, eilen).
• The perfect (olen lukenut) expresses a present result or experience and normally doesn’t appear with a specific past time adverbial.
  So you say Minä luin sata sivua eilen (“I read a hundred pages yesterday”), not Olen lukenut sata sivua eilen.