Breakdown of Lääkäri suositteli minulle uutta lääkettä.
uusi
new
minä
me
lääkäri
the doctor
suositella
to recommend
lääke
the medicine
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Questions & Answers about Lääkäri suositteli minulle uutta lääkettä.
What case is minulle and what does it express?
minulle is the allative case, marked by the suffix -lle, and it indicates the recipient or beneficiary of an action – here, the person “to whom” the doctor made the recommendation.
Why is it minulle and not minua?
minulle (allative) marks an indirect object (“to/for me”). minua would be the partitive or accusative form, which marks a direct object (“me” as the thing affected by the action). But in recommending, the doctor directs the advice to someone, so allative (minulle) is required.
Why is uusi lääke in the partitive case as uutta lääkettä?
Finnish often uses the partitive (suffix -a/-ä) for a direct object when the action is incomplete, ongoing, or involves something indefinite. Moreover, the verb suositella (“to recommend”) specifically takes a partitive object. Thus uutta lääkettä means “some new medicine.”
Could we say uusi lääke in the nominative instead of uutta lääkettä?
No. With suositella, the direct object must be in the partitive. Using Lääkäri suositteli minulle uusi lääke (nominative) would be ungrammatical in standard Finnish.
What form is suositteli, and how is it formed?
suositteli is the third person singular imperfect (past tense) of suositella. In Finnish, the imperfect is formed by adding an -i- infix to the verb stem plus the personal ending (for 3 sg. the ending merges with the -i-), yielding suositteli.
Can we omit minulle, and if so, how does that change the sentence?
Yes. Lääkäri suositteli uutta lääkettä (“The doctor recommended some new medicine”) is still correct. Omitting minulle simply removes the explicit “to me,” so the recipient is either understood from context or remains unspecified.
What is the typical word order in Finnish, and can it change in this sentence?
The neutral order is Subject–Verb–Object (SVO). Here it’s Lääkäri (S) + suositteli (V) + minulle (indirect object) + uutta lääkettä (direct object). Finnish word order is flexible, so you could also say Lääkäri suositteli uutta lääkettä minulle, with nearly the same meaning (a slight shift in emphasis).
Why does lääkäri have a double ä (ää) and how is it pronounced?
The double ä (ää) indicates a long vowel (held about twice as long as a single ä). It’s pronounced like an extended version of the vowel in English “cat” [æː]. So lääkäri is [ˈlæːkæri].