Consonants That Change or Vanish

Level 3

Tuba means "room", but "in the room" is toas. The b disappears and u becomes o.

How It Works

Some words change a consonant between their strong and weak forms. There are a few common patterns:

  • The consonant disappears: tuba → toa, jõgi → jõe, pood → poe, mägi → mäe, lugema → loen, tegema → teen. When b, d or g disappears, a vowel often changes too: u → o (tuba, toa), i → e (rida, rea).
  • It turns into j or v: sõda → sõja, aeg → aja, leib → leiva.
  • It blends into the sound before it: lind → linnu, hind → hinna, sild → silla, kord → korra, andma → annan.
  • k, p, t becomes g, b, d after a consonant: pank → panga, tark → targa. Strictly, linguists call this a length change, but it looks like a letter change on the page.

For nouns, the nominative and partitive are strong: tuba, tuba; jõgi, jõge; lind, lindu. The genitive and the cases built on it are weak: toa, toas, toast; jõe, jõel; panga, pangas.

For verbs, the present tense is often weak and the infinitive and past are strong: lugema – loen – lugesin, tegema – teen – tegin.

You cannot guess these changes from the nominative alone, so learn each word with its genitive.

Examples (6)

  1. Meie toas on soe.

    It's warm in our room.

    Word by Word: our room-in is warm

    Tuba → toas: b disappears and u becomes o.

  2. Me jalutasime jõe ääres.

    We walked by the river.

    Jõgi → jõe before the postposition ääres.

  3. Ma loen raamatut.

    I'm reading a book.

    Lugema → loen in the present tense.

  4. Sõja ajal elas vanaema maal.

    During the war, grandmother lived in the countryside.

    Sõda → sõja: d becomes j.

  5. Linnu laul äratas mind varakult üles.

    A bird's song woke me up early.

    Lind → linnu: nd becomes nn.

  6. Ma käisin hommikul pangas.

    I went to the bank in the morning.

    Pank → pangas: k becomes g.

Common Mistakes

  • Keeping the strong stem in the present tense.

    Ma lugen raamatut.
    Ma loen raamatut.

    The present of lugema is weak: loen, loed, loeb.

  • Using the nominative before a postposition.

    Me jalutasime jõgi ääres.
    Me jalutasime jõe ääres.

    Ääres needs the genitive, and the genitive of jõgi is jõe.

  • Adding an ending to the strong stem.

    Ma olen pankas.
    Ma olen pangas.

    Place endings like -s go on the weak stem panga-.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

Consonants That Change or VanishLevel 3

Learn This First

Qualitative gradation is the other type of gradation.

Learn Next

Patterns that build on this one.