# Hän ostaa pian jäätelöä/hän valmistaa aamupalaa



## Setwale_Charm

Hei!!
I have always been taught that in affirmative sentences Finnish uses Genitive for direct objects when the latter is a definite or already known object, and Partitive when it is an abstract concept, notion or an unknown quantity.
 I cannot therefore understand why in the following sentences:
_Hän ostaa pian jäätelöä_
_Hän valmistaa aamupalaa_
Partitive and not Genitive case is used?


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## Grumpy Old Man

I don't know much about Finnish grammatical rules because there seem to be ten thousand of them but I can tell you the difference in meaning if we change the grammatical case in your sentences.

_Hän ostaa pian jäätelöä._
_Jäätelö,_ ice cream, is treated as an uncountable noun or as a mass noun. We have no idea how much ice cream the person is going to buy.

_Hän ostaa pian jäätelön._
This suggests that the person is going to buy something like a small portion of ice cream only. He'll certainly be able to eat it all. In English you might say: _He/She will soon buy *an* ice cream,_ I think.

_Hän valmistaa aamupalaa_ impilies that the person is preparing breakfast at this very moment.

_Hän valmistaa aamupalan_ may imply that the person is usually in charge of preparing breakfast in his/her household. He/She need not be making breakfast right now  -  even though that could be possible too, depending on the context.

For example: _Hän valmistaa aamupalan/aamiaisen lapsille joka aamu_ normally requires the genitive to be used. (= _He/She makes breakfast for the children every morning._) Even though there probably are few exceptions to grammatical rules in Finnish compared with English, I would hesitate to say that a certain rule *always* applies. In many cases subtle differences can be expressed by means of changes in case endings.


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## Setwale_Charm

The point that confused me here was that the _Valmistaako hän aamupalaa?_ sentence was translated with the future tense: Will he make breakfast?


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## Grumpy Old Man

There's no future tense in Finnish. In most cases I would say _Valmistaako hän aamupalan?_ to refer to the future but it might be possible to use the genitive in some contexts. In my humble opinion it's more likely that the version offered to you is simply a mistake. Finnish is too difficult for Finns!


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## Setwale_Charm

So would the sentence: _I need a difficult question_ rather be translated as: _Tarvitsen hankalan kysymyksen_
or
_Tarvitsen hankalaa kysymysta_?


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## Grumpy Old Man

_Tarvitsen hankalan/vaikean kysymyksen_ is correct. _Kysymys_ is a word that can occur in the plural and that may be an important factor in the choice because we would say _tarvitsen rohkeutta,_ not _tarvitsen rohkeuden_ (= I need courage). _Rohkeus_ isn't used in the plural  -  at least I can't think of a situation in which a plural would be used.


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## Setwale_Charm

Then it is probably because 'rohkeus' is an abstract uncountable noun...that it requires Partitive to be used.


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## Perkele

I could see _rohkeus_ used in genitive accusative form in poems or a Teräsbetoni song.

Tarvitsen rohkeuden.
I need _the_ courage.

Btw, how would my fellow Finns translate the phrases below? I couldn't decide what denotes the English -ing suffix and what the _ostamassa_ forms even mean! Mind-boggling!
* Olen ostamassa autoa.* I'm buying a car (and I'm talking to the car dealer right now!)
* Ostan autoa.* I'm buying a car.
* Olen ostamassa auton.* I'm thinking of buying a car.
* Ostan auton.* I buy a car.


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## Hakro

Perkele said:


> I could see _rohkeus_ used in genitive accusative form in poems or a Teräsbetoni song.
> 
> Tarvitsen rohkeuden.
> I need _the_ courage.


Hi Perkele,

Excuse me, but I think that this is a typical example of the abusing of the Finnish language in nowadays pop lyrics. A real poet would never use this form.

For your question you should have started a new thread but I'll give you a short answer:


> * Olen ostamassa autoa.* I'm buying a car (and I'm talking to the car dealer right now!)
> * Ostan autoa.* I'm buying a car.
> * Olen ostamassa auton.* I'm thinking of buying a car.
> * Ostan auton.* I buy a car.


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## Setwale_Charm

Perkele said:


> *Olen ostamassa autoa.*


 So, is this the established pattern olen+verb/ssa+ Partitive?


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## Grumpy Old Man

Setwale_Charm said:


> So, is this the established pattern olen+verb/ssa+ Partitive?


That is indeed a very common pattern.


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