# I know two books



## Samuelkristopher

These little things that my Finnish grammar books don't seem to go into much detail about!

My intuition tells me it should be "kahden kirjan", since it's the object of "tiedän", but then I was reading elsewhere that "kaksi + partitive" can be an object, and two online translators tell me that "I know two books" would be "Tiedän kaksi kirjaa".


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## Grumpy Old Man

_Tiedän kaksi kirjaa _is correct, but the sentence seems incomplete. This sounds OK: _Tiedän kaksi kirjaa, jotka käsittelevät asiaa. 
_
GOM


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## Gavril

When any numeral other than _yksi_ is the total object of the verb, it takes the same form as the nominative. Any noun that the numeral modifies is in the partitive.

Thus: _Tiedän kaksi kirjaa_ "I know of two books ...", as GOM said.

If a numeral is the partial object of a verb, then both the number and the following noun are partitive:

_Odotan kahta kirjaa_ "I'm waiting for two books (to come in the mail, etc.)"

The only context (if I'm not forgetting anything) where you would see _kahden_, _kolmen_, etc. would be a genitive phrase (_kahden kirjan tekijä_ "author of two books"). Only _yhden_ (< _yksi_) can potentially be an accusative form as well.


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## Samuelkristopher

That makes sense, thanks guys


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