Pakkanen tekee kadun liukkaaksi.

the street

Breakdown of Pakkanen tekee kadun liukkaaksi.

• tehdä: to make
• liukas: slippery
• -ksi: into

Questions & Answers about Pakkanen tekee kadun liukkaaksi.

What part of speech is pakkanen, and why is it in the basic form?

Pakkanen is a noun meaning frost / freezing weather. It’s the subject of the sentence, so it appears in the nominative (dictionary) form: pakkanen.

Why is the verb tekee (not something like tekevät or tehdään)?

Tekee is the 3rd person singular present tense form of tehdä (to do / to make). The subject pakkanen is singular, so the verb is singular: pakkanen tekee = the frost makes.

Why does tehdä here mean to make rather than to do?

Finnish tehdä covers both do and make, and the meaning depends on the structure.
In the pattern X tekee Y:n Z:ksi, it typically means make: X causes Y to become Z.

Why is kadun in that form instead of katu?

Kadun is the object of the verb tekee. In Finnish, a complete/total object is often marked like a genitive form in the singular: kadun (the street as the thing affected in full).
So tekee kadun… = makes the street….