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Tarvikkeet jäivät ensin varastoon, mutta muuton jälkeen ne löysivät paikkansa.

Tarvikkeet jäivät ensin varastoon, mutta muuton jälkeen ne löysivät paikkansa.
The supplies stayed in storage at first, but after the move they found their place.
FromLesson 17inHardcore Finnish
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Questions & Answers about Tarvikkeet jäivät ensin varastoon, mutta muuton jälkeen ne löysivät paikkansa.

What part of speech is ensin and what does it mean in this sentence?
Ensin is an adverb meaning “first” or “initially.” It indicates that something happens before anything else, so here it means “at first” the supplies ended up in storage.
Why is varastoon in the illative case (ending in -oon) rather than the inessive (-ssa)?

The illative case (-oon) expresses movement into somewhere—“into the storage.” Even though jäädä often means “to stay,” here it describes where the supplies ended up.
• If you used varastossa (inessive), it would just mean “inside the storage” as a static location.
• varastoon highlights the idea of being placed into the storage at first.

Why is muuton in the genitive case before jälkeen?

Jälkeen is a postposition meaning “after,” and it always follows a genitive noun.
• muutto (the move) → genitive muuton + jäl­keen = “after the move.”

What role does ne play in …muuton jälkeen ne löysivät paikkansa?
The pronoun ne (“they”) refers back to tarvikkeet (“the supplies”) to avoid repeating the noun. In Finnish, both animate and inanimate plurals use ne as the 3rd-person plural pronoun.
How are the past-tense forms jäivät and löysivät formed?

Both verbs are in the 3rd person plural past. Finnish past uses a -i- stem plus personal endings:
• jäädä → stem jää-, past stem jäi- → jäivät (“they stayed/ended up”)
• löytää → stem löyt-, past stem löysi- → löysivät (“they found”)

What is paikkansa made of, and why is it used here?
Paikkansa = paikka (“place”) + -nsa (3rd-person possessive suffix). It literally means “their place.” The possessive suffix shows the place belongs to the subject, and löytää paikkansa is an idiomatic expression meaning “to find one’s place.”

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