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Questions & Answers about Kauppa myy ruokaa.
What is myy and what is its infinitive form?
myy is the third person singular present tense of the verb myydä, meaning “to sell.” It corresponds to “(he/she/it) sells.”
Why is ruokaa in the partitive case instead of the nominative?
The object ruokaa is an indefinite, uncountable quantity (food in general), so Finnish uses the partitive case for incomplete, ongoing, or indefinite objects. If you used the nominative ruoka, it would imply selling all of a specific food item, which doesn’t fit here.
Why aren’t there any articles (“a” or “the”) in this sentence?
Finnish has no articles. Definiteness or indefiniteness is conveyed through word order, case endings (nominative vs. partitive), or additional words like tämä (this) or se (that), not by separate article words.
Which word is the subject and which is the object in Kauppa myy ruokaa?
Kauppa (“shop”) is the subject in the nominative case. Ruokaa (“food”) is the object in the partitive. The default Finnish word order is Subject–Verb–Object (SVO), but it can be rearranged for emphasis.
How would you turn this statement into the question “Does the shop sell food?” in Finnish?
Attach the question particle -ko/-kö to the verb and invert the subject and verb:
Myykö kauppa ruokaa?
How do you pluralize the sentence so it means “Shops sell food”?
Change kauppa to its nominative plural kaupat and use the third person plural form of the verb myydä, which is myyvät. The object stays in the partitive:
Kaupat myyvät ruokaa.
Could you say Kauppa myy ruokia instead of ruokaa?
Yes. Ruokia is the plural partitive of ruoka (“foods”), implying different types or varieties of food. It’s less common when talking about food in general, but you use ruokia to emphasize variety.
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