A question to those who know #Finnish on here please.
If I want to say "I want to eat some ice cream" in Finnish, it would be "Mä haluan syödä jäätelöä".
But if I wanted to say "I want to buy a car", would it be "Mä haluan ostaa auton", because I am talking about one whole car, rather than using the partitive "autoa"?
I'm not that good with grammar, but the difference between "ostan auton" and "ostan jäätelöä" is that the car is a single unit, but the ice cream is (for example) a refrigerator full of different brands, to which you are referring to as collective.
You could also say "mä haluan syödä jäätelön", but then the assumption is that you don't really see a difference between the brands, or alternatively there's only one type at offer.
@iju Ahh, thanks for that explanation, Juho. It seems to boil down to whether you're talking about something you can identify as a discreet thing?
E.g. if there was only one type of ice cream / only specific sized portions, you'd say jäätelön because you're talking about that specific type / one portion specifically.
But if you just wanted to say I want to buy some ice cream (generally some, not a specific kind / specific portion), then you'd use jäätelöä.
I think that's what you mean, right?
Yes.
Sorry I don't know any of the fancy grammar-words. They did try to teach them back in school, but I was never that good with them.
@Howard @iju As is to be expected, the whole explanation is a bit more complicated. This boils down to whether jäätelö is a mass noun (uncountable) in the sentence or not. It can be both: a specific quantity, package or portion OR ice cream generally.
This is one of several cases when the object in the sentence takes the partitive case. For example, in negative sentences it's always partitive: Älä osta autoa! = Don't buy a/the car!
Howard Cheng
Juho Mäntysalo
Kalle Kniivilä