buss, -i
bussis – in the bus
bussi juures – near the bus

hotell, i
hotellis – in the hotel
hotelli juures – near the bus

teater, teatri
teatris – in the theatre
teatri juures – near the hotel

jaam, -a
jaamas – in the station
jaama juures – near the station

apteek, apteegi
apteegis – in the chemist
apteegi juures – near the chemist’s

suur saal, suure saali
suures saalis – in the big hall
suure saali juures – near the big hall

turg, turu
turul – at the market
turu juures – near the market

laud, laua
laual – at the market
laua juures – near the table

maantee, –
maanteel – on the road
maantee juures – near the road

trepp, trepi
trepil – on the stairs
trepi juures – near the stairs

buss, -i
bussis – in the bus
bussi juures – near the bus

hotell, i
hotellis – in the hotel
hotelli juures – near the bus

teater, teatri
teatris – in the theatre
teatri juures – near the hotel

jaam, -a
jaamas – in the station
jaama juures – near the station

apteek, apteegi
apteegis – in the chemist
apteegi juures – near the chemist’s

suur saal, suure saali
suures saalis – in the big hall
suure saali juures – near the big hall

turg, turu
turul – at the market
turu juures – near the market

laud, laua
laual – at the market
laua juures – near the table

maantee, –
maanteel – on the road
maantee juures – near the road

trepp, trepi
trepil – on the stairs
trepi juures – near the stairs

You know, just like in English, there are words made of two words.

Let’s think… like “pineapple”. Pine apple. Not, that was not a good example. Hm, maybe bus driver? Is that two words? Well, you got the point.

In Estonian you also have that. Let’s take bus driver, bussi/juht. You actually bussijuht. But when you see it in the dictionary it is bussi/juht, -juhi. Bussijuhi is “of a bus driver”. Bussijuhi juures is “near the bus driver”. You do not say bussijuhti juures. You get the second form, bussijuhi and then add juures.

When we want to indicate the place , we add the ending -s or -l

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

The ending -s indicates the location is inside something. Bussis is inside the bus. One possibility of saying the sugar is inside the coffee is “suhkur on kohvis”, but in reality the spoken practice is “suhkur on kohvises”, but we will get to that later. “suhkur on kohvis” is gramatically right.

Just want to point out and remember that to add the -s to indicate that something is inside something else, you have first to get the second case of the noun.

And the -l ending indiates that the location is on something. But just don’t take this too seriously, because it will depend a little. We will do a lot of exercises and practice.

On the next video I will try to bring some examples.

So today we will have the first Grammar video of LearningEstonian.com

You know, in English, things are so easy. When you are using words like “chocolate”, “book”, “cat” etc, it is always the same thing. The nouns do not change in the sentence according to the role they play because we use prepositions.

So when I say coffee with sugar, it is “coffee” and “sugar”. And the “with” is the part that gives the meaning to the sentence, indicating that sugar goes on the coffee.

But in Estonian, we would have “kohv” for coffee and “suhkur” for sugar. But we do not have a preposition similar to “with” that would go between the words. We say “kohv suhkruga”, which would be more or less like “sugaRED coffee”.

If you have seen the previous videos on our YouTube channel or on LearningEstonian.com you may have noticed how I often talk about the suffix and that is quite complicated, but we will manage.

Another example. Teater is theatre. But “teatris” means “in the theatre”

To make things just a little more complex (and fun/challenging), Estonian also has postpositions that are written as separate words, such as “teatri juures” meaning near the theatre.

SO. HOW TO ADD THE CASE ENDINGS?

They are added not on the first form of the dictionary. We do not say kohv suhkurGA. We say kohv sukruGA. This “second form” is the genitive and according to our reference book, it always ends with i, e, a or u. So when I’m thinking of “suhkur”, it is clearly not the format to add the case ending. It should end with eiter i, e, a or u.

Suhkur and sukru are more or less similar. But it can change A LOT. Do not be fooled!

Example: turg is market, and it is in the first form. But when it is “near the market” or “at the market”, we have to know the second form, which is “turu”.

So “near the market” becomes turu juures.

And “at the market” is turul.

This is why when we build our vocabulary in Estonian we have to know both the first and second forms. Do not freak out, we will do it slowly.

So far the words we have added on the vocabulary at LearningEstonian.com are only on the first form to keep it simple. From now on, we will follow our reference book and also add the second form, because only now with this explanation we can understand their function and purpose.

The way you will see in most books is not the fully written version. For example, tourist, which is turist. You do not see on the dictionary turist / turisti. That would take too much space. So people write turist / -i. This indicates that you should add a -i at the end. Turist becomes turisti.

Only when the word is very different on the first and second form that we write them. This is the case of trepp and trepi.

There is a little more of grammar. Let’s just pause here and I will do another video just afterwards.