Estonian/Everything and Nothing

In this lesson we'll go over some important determiners in Estonian.

What are Determiners?

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Determiners are a class of words that span over several types of words, such as pronouns and adjectives, which are used to specify nouns. These primarily act like adjectives in general, and include words like my, this, every, no, each, as well as question determiners that can be used to begin interrogative sentences and specify nouns in declarative sentences, such as what, which and who.

Common determiners in Estonian

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Estonian English Corresponding
Question
Question in English Declension?
iga each/every ~ mitmes? which one? (ordinal num.) iga - iga - iga(t)
mõni some missugune? which one? (ordinal num.) mõni - mõne - mõnda
paar a couple (of) mitu? how many? (cardinal num.) paar - paari - .paari
see this missugune? which one? (adjective) see - selle - seda
selline like this missugune? what kind? (adjective)
like what?
selline - sellise - sellist
kumb which missugune? which one? kumb - kumma - .kumba
mingi
mingisugune
some, some kind of
(mingi can refer to both nouns or adjectives)
missugune? which one?
what kind?
mingi - mingi - mingi(t)
mingisugune - mingisuguse - mingisugust
  • milline - informal short form of missugune

Non-Determiner Vocabulary

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The following words are included in this lesson, but are not Determiners because they are standalone words. However, some may be composed of determiners.

Estonian English
midagi
miski
something
(nothing)
keegi someone
mitte not
mitte midagi
eimiski
nothing
mitte keegi
eikeegi
nobody
(mitte) kumbki neither (subject)
(mitte) kumbagi neither (object)
  • kõik - kõige - .kõike - all, everything, everyone
  • inimene - inimese - inimest - person, human
  • elu - elu - elu - life
  • kiri - kirja - .kirja - letter

Verbs (shorthand)

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  • nägema - näe - ei näe - to see

Enumeration of nouns

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Nominative Nouns preceded by an ordinal determiner (1st, 2nd, 3rd, first, last, every etc.) are written in the Nominative. The determiner (e.g. number) will decline along with the noun in all other cases.

The Accusative case (III) marks the partitive in Estonian, and the partitive is used when talking about several (plural) of something (preceded by a cardinal determiner). In this case, the Nominative becomes the Accusative, but all other cases remain the same:

  • paar + kass = kolm .kassi (kass becomes Accusative)
  • paari + kassi = kolme kassi
  • .paari + .kassi = .kolme .kassi

Phrases

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Iga inimene teab midagi

Translation

Every person knows something

Siin on paar õuna

Translation

Here are a couple of apples

Mõni kass oskab seda

Translation

Some cats know how to do this

Selline on elu

Translation

That's life
That's what life is like

Mitte keegi ei tea seda

Translation

Nobody knows this

Ma ei taha kumbagi

Translation

I don't want either one

Ma kuulen mõnda inimest

Translation

I hear some people

Kumba sa tahad?

Translation

Which one do you want?

Kas see peab selline olema?

Translation

Does it have to be like that?

Ma ei näe kumbagi kirja

Translation

I see neither letter

Kõik on siin

Translation

Everything is here
Everyone is here