Tämä muistiinpano auttaa minua muistamaan tärkeitä asioita.

This note helps me remember important things.

Breakdown of Tämä muistiinpano auttaa minua muistamaan tärkeitä asioita.

• tämä: this
• tärkeä: important
• muistaa: to remember
• asia: the thing
• auttaa: to help
• minua: me
• muistiinpano: the note

Questions & Answers about Tämä muistiinpano auttaa minua muistamaan tärkeitä asioita.

What does Tämä mean and how is it used here?

Tämä is a demonstrative pronoun meaning “this.” It agrees in number and case with the noun it modifies. Here tämä muistiinpano is in the nominative singular, so tämä signals “this (one).”

What is muistiinpano, and how is it formed?

Muistiinpano is a compound noun made from muisti (“memory”) + pano (“insertion/note-taking”). Together they literally mean “memory insertion,” but in practice muistiinpano translates as “note” or “memo.” It appears here in the nominative singular as the sentence’s subject.

Why is minua used instead of minä?

With the verb auttaa (“to help”), the person being helped takes the partitive case. The nominative minä (“I”) becomes minua in the partitive. This marks “me” as the one who receives help.

Why is muistamaan in the -maan/-mään form instead of muistaa?

After auttaa, when you express “help someone to do something,” Finnish uses the third infinitive ending -maan/-mään to show purpose. So the first infinitive muistaa (“to remember”) turns into muistamaan (“to remember,” as in “in order to remember”).

Why are tärkeitä asioita in the partitive plural?

The act of “remembering things” takes its object in the partitive when the action is indefinite or ongoing. Thus tärkeät asiat (nominative “important things”) becomes tärkeitä asioita (partitive plural).

Could you omit minua and say auttaa muistamaan? How does that change the meaning?

Yes. Tämä muistiinpano auttaa muistamaan tärkeitä asioita. (without minua) means “This note helps (one) remember important things.” It’s more general and doesn’t specify who is helped.

What is the overall word order in this sentence?

The pattern is Subject–Verb–Object–Purpose clause:

1. Tämä muistiinpano (subject)
2. auttaa (verb)
3. minua (object in partitive)
4. muistamaan tärkeitä asioita (infinitive clause showing “help me to remember important things”)

How do you pronounce muistiinpano?

Roughly /ˈmuːs.tin.pɑ.no/. The stress is on the first syllable: MOO-stin-pah-no.

What case is muistiinpano in, and why doesn’t it have a special ending?

It’s in the nominative singular because it functions as the grammatical subject. Finnish subjects are unmarked in the nominative unless they need a different case for a specific reason (e.g., negation, possessive construction).