# Seitsemän veljestä



## Carrot Ironfoundersson

Hi everyone!

I started studying Finnish about a month ago and in one of the exercises I came across the name of this book. Now the question is why "veljestä" and not "veljeä", as I have already learned that with numerals one should use partitive singular. 

Thanks


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## sammio

Hi!

_Veljestä_ is in the partitive case and singular too, it's just a different word than _veli_. The nominative form of _veljestä_ would be _veljes_, which indeed has the same origin as _veli_ and means the same too, just with a slightly different tone.

In my opinion_ veli_ is used when someone is said to be a brother to someone, for example _minun veljeni_ "my brother" or _Toni on Nikon veli_ "Toni is Niko's brother" but _veljes_ (mostly used in pluralis _veljekset_) when speaking of two or more persons who are brother's to each other. Do you other Finns agree?


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## sakvaka

Please see http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1718561 .


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## Carrot Ironfoundersson

*sammio*, *sakvaka*, thank you for your replies! Didn't find the word "veljes" in my Lingvo dictionary(which leaves much to be desired) but found it in wiktionary afterwards. And I promise not to be hasty with opening new threads in the future!


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