Learn Hardcore Finnish: Keskustelu auttoi löytämään tarkan suunnan. - The conversation helped to find an exact direction.

Auttoi is the past tense form of the verb auttaa (“to help”). The sentence describes a completed action in the past, so auttoi is used instead of the present tense auttaa.

Why is löytämään used instead of the dictionary form löytää?

Löytämään is the agent infinitive (infinitive II, marked with -maan/-mään). With verbs like auttaa, Finnish requires this infinitive to express “help to do something.” The basic infinitive löytää cannot function as that dependent complement.

What case is tarkan suunnan, and why is it not in the partitive?

Tarkan suunnan is in the accusative singular. In Finnish, a direct object of a verb that denotes a completed (telic) action takes the accusative. The adjective tarkka agrees in case, becoming tarkan. Using the partitive (tarkkaa suuntaa) would instead suggest an incomplete or ongoing action.

What case is keskustelu, and why doesn’t it have a suffix?

Keskustelu is in the nominative singular, marking it as the sentence’s subject. In Finnish, nominative singular nouns often have no visible ending (a “zero ending”), so keskustelu appears without any additional suffix.

Who is being helped in this sentence? There’s no pronoun like “us” or “them.”

Finnish commonly omits pronouns when context makes the referent clear. Here, the implied agents of löytämään are the participants in the discussion. To specify explicitly, you could say:
Keskustelu auttoi meitä löytämään tarkan suunnan.
where meitä (partitive plural) marks “us,” the ones being helped.

Could the word order be changed in this sentence?

Yes. Finnish word order is fairly flexible. The neutral order is Subject–Verb–Object (Keskustelu auttoi löytämään tarkan suunnan). You can front elements for emphasis, for example:
Tarkan suunnan keskustelu auttoi löytämään
(“It was the exact direction that the discussion helped to find”), without altering the core grammar.

How do we know löytämään tarkan suunnan is one unit and not two separate phrases?

The agent infinitive form (-maan/-mään) appears only as a dependent clause complementing certain verbs (like auttaa, alkaa, antaa). Seeing löytämään directly after auttoi signals that löytämään tarkan suunnan functions as a single complement (“help to find the exact direction”), not a standalone clause.

Do infinitive II forms change if the subject is plural?

No. Infinitive II forms don’t agree with the subject in number or person. Even if the subject were plural (e.g. Osallistujat auttoivat löytämään tarkan suunnan “The participants helped to find the exact direction”), the form löytämään remains the same.

Can you give other examples of verbs that take the -maan/-mään infinitive?

Certainly. Common verbs that use the agent infinitive include:

alkaa (“to begin”): Aloin lukemaan kirjaa. (“I began to read a book.”)
jättää (“to leave [something doing]”): Jätin valot palamaan. (“I left the lights on [lit].”)
antaa (“to let/allow”): Anna minun auttaa. (“Let me help.”)
toivoa (“to hope”): Toivon pääseväni mukaan. (“I hope to get involved.”)