Understanding Estonian Adjective Agreement
In Estonian, adjectives are words that describe nouns, like 'big', 'small', 'red', or 'happy'. Just like in English, they tell us more about the noun they are describing. But in Estonian, adjectives must agree with the noun in certain ways.
This means that if the noun is singular, the adjective must be singular too. If the noun is plural, the adjective must also be plural. Also, if the noun is in a special case, like the genitive or partitive, the adjective must be in that case too.
Important Points
- Adjectives match the noun's number: singular or plural.
- Adjectives match the noun's case: nominative, genitive, partitive, etc.
- Adjectives usually come before the noun they describe.
Let's look at some examples to understand how this works.
Examples
- See on punane auto.
- Mul on suured majad.
- Ostan kollast maja.
In the first example, 'punane' (red) is describing 'auto' (car), and they are both singular. In the second example, 'suured' (big) describes 'majad' (houses), and they are both plural. In the third example, 'kollast' (yellow) is in the partitive case to match 'maja' (house) in the partitive.
By remembering these rules, you can make sure your adjectives always agree with the nouns they describe in Estonian.