Countable nouns would have the describing adjective in the basic (“nominatiivi”) form: “pallo on musta” [The ball is black]. Something uncountable, such as mämmi (a gooey food) has the adjective in “partitiivi”: “Mämmi on mustaa”, “vesi on kylmää” etc.
The partitive case is used because mämmi is an unknown quantity. This applies to all liquid or semi liquid substances unless some form of container/measurement is expressed like “yksi tuokkonen mämmiä”, “lasi vettä” or “litra olutta”.
This is the reason duolingo is not a good way to learn a language like finnish, it does not explain concepts that very much need explaining and knowledge of the grammar rules to understand. The problem however is, that most finns cannot explain you the why either. You need someone who has specifically studied finnish grammar to explain it to you. To my knowledge finnish doesn’t have many irregularities in words, but there is a ton of rules to it, that your average native speaker does not have a singular clue in.
The reason why natives can’t explain you the grammar why’s, is that we are not taught why certain words form their clauses in a certain way. I for example am a university student, and i do not remember ever learning why for example in that sentence mustaa (black) has an additional ‘a’ in it, but for example punaista (red) wouldn’t have. I know it’s that way, but i have zero clue as to why that happens in grammatical sense.
Think of it like, the contents of mämmi are black and sweet
That’s where my thinking went with the translation anyway. Finnish does this sometimes.
I think “Mämmi on musta ja makea” is closer to “The/this mämmi is black and sweet” it depends on the countability and how defined the object is
![[Finnish] can someone explain why](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/52aceeyqwvcc1-1080x1024.jpeg)
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Mämmi on mustaa ja makeaa.
essentially the other a means “is” 😛
Countable nouns would have the describing adjective in the basic (“nominatiivi”) form: “pallo on musta” [The ball is black]. Something uncountable, such as mämmi (a gooey food) has the adjective in “partitiivi”: “Mämmi on mustaa”, “vesi on kylmää” etc.
The partitive case is used because mämmi is an unknown quantity. This applies to all liquid or semi liquid substances unless some form of container/measurement is expressed like “yksi tuokkonen mämmiä”, “lasi vettä” or “litra olutta”.
This is the reason duolingo is not a good way to learn a language like finnish, it does not explain concepts that very much need explaining and knowledge of the grammar rules to understand. The problem however is, that most finns cannot explain you the why either. You need someone who has specifically studied finnish grammar to explain it to you. To my knowledge finnish doesn’t have many irregularities in words, but there is a ton of rules to it, that your average native speaker does not have a singular clue in.
The reason why natives can’t explain you the grammar why’s, is that we are not taught why certain words form their clauses in a certain way. I for example am a university student, and i do not remember ever learning why for example in that sentence mustaa (black) has an additional ‘a’ in it, but for example punaista (red) wouldn’t have. I know it’s that way, but i have zero clue as to why that happens in grammatical sense.
Think of it like, the contents of mämmi are black and sweet
That’s where my thinking went with the translation anyway. Finnish does this sometimes.
I think “Mämmi on musta ja makea” is closer to “The/this mämmi is black and sweet” it depends on the countability and how defined the object is