Jonne

So, if you think you should re-learn the cases, you are in the right place. In this lesson I will try to teach the cases intensivetly. Take out a notebook and a pen

So, as you know, there are 15 cases in Finnish and I'll teach you 9 most important of them.

Cases are used in the same purpose as English uses prefixes.
In English: Taloissanikin
In Finnish: In my houses too
Talo = house
-i- = plular marker
-ssa- = inessive
-ni- = possessive suffix
-kin = 'also, too, as well'

By adding lots of suffixes you can create long words as epäjärjestelmällistämättömyydelläänsäänkäänköhän.

Anyway, only one case is used in the word above. Inessive. Let's start with it.

INESSIVE

It tells you that something is in something, In this case, you get the idea that something is in the houses. This is one of the easiest cases. To put a word into inessive, you just have to add -ssa or -ssä to the word.
-ssa if the word contains back vowels (a,o,u)
-ssä if the word contains front vowels (ä,ö,y)
Middle vowels can be mixed with both.

Oulu = Oulu (city name)
Kauppa = Store, Shop
Helsinki = Helsinki (the capital city)
Kirja = Book.

Now you have the words. Put them into inessive.

Oulu - Oulussa. Asun Oulussa (I live in Oulu).
Kauppa - Kaupassa. You should know that double k, p and t looses their other consonant when adding an ending with two consonants and one vowel (ssa, ssä, lla, llä, sta, stä, lta, ltä, lle etc. etc.)
For example, Kauppa is kaupassa in inessive (ending ssa, ssä) put kauppaa in partitive (ending a, ä).
Helsinki - Helsingissä. The consonant change happens with nk as well. It turns to ng, like in English word 'sing'.
Kirja - Kirjassa. Näin sen kirjassa (I saw it in a book).

ELATIVE

So we know that
Book = Kirja
and
In book = Kirjassa.
Now, if we want to say "from a book", we add the ending sta, stä to the word. -Sta to Kirja, because it has only back and middle vowels.
From book = Kirjasta.

Same rules as with inessive.

ABLATIVE

Interesting one, but not anymore difficult. Generally, it is the same as elative, but used with people. If you want to say "I got this book from Anna", you don't say "Annasta" for "from Anna", but "Annalta". So, the ending is lta,ltä. If you say Annasta, it'd mean something like 'from the inside of Anna'.

From Asma - Asmalta
From Bernhard - Bernhardilta (notice the extra i. It'd be difficult to pronounce the word without it.)
From Nadia - Nadialta

ABESSIVE

This one is a bit similar to ablative.
When you want to say "To Asma", you say "Asmalle."
The ending is always -lle.

To Asma = Asmalle
To Bernhard = Bernhardille
To Päivi = Päiville
To book = Kirjalle

Anyway, note that this is mainly used with people and animals.
With non-living objects it gets different meaning;
Kirjalle kaatui vettä.
Kirjalle = to book
kaatui = s/he / it fell down
vettä = water (partitive)
= Water was split on a book.

So far you have learnt the singular form of inessive, elative, ablative, abessive. For plular, it's generally just adding -i- before the ending. You have to remember some rules anyhow.

Tyttö - Tytöistä
Talo - Taloista
Katu - Kaduilla *see GRADATION lesson*

:: The plular of the stem may change before the i-marker.

e, ä are dropped before the i-marker.

Pienellä - Pienillä
Lehdessä - Lehdissä

a is dropped if the first vowel of the word is o or u.

pojalla - pojille
junalla - junilla
opettajalla - opettajilla

a -> o in other words

halvassa - halvoissa
kaupasta - kaupoista

Some long words ending in a or ä are irregular.

opiskelijalla - opiskelijoilla
kameralla - kameroilla
mansikasta - mansikoista


NOMINATIVE

Nominative is the basic form of a word.
Talo, tyttö, poika, auto
house, girl, boy, car.

For nominative plular you just add -t.
There are some exceptions anyway.

Kauppa - kaupat
tyttö - tytöt

and so on.

GENITIVE

Anna's house.
Annan talo.

Just add -n!

Anna's house is big.
Annan talo on suuri.

PARTITIVE

There's a whole lesson for it. Lesson 4 - Partitive

__________________
-Jonne
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