Tiettyä

Tiettyä is the partitive singular form of the Finnish adjective tietty, meaning a certain or particular thing. It is used to refer to a subset of something rather than the whole, or to express indefiniteness about a quality, amount, or type.

In Finnish, adjectives decline to match the noun they modify. Therefore tiettyä appears before a singular noun in the partitive case, as in tiettyä tietoa (some information) or tiettyä määrää rahaa (a certain amount of money). The corresponding nominative form is tietty (a certain one), the genitive is tietyn, and the plural forms include tiettyjä (partitive) or tiettyjen (genitive). For example: tietyt kysymykset (certain questions) and tiettyjä kysymyksiä (certain questions, partitive). Other common partitive uses include phrases like tiettyä laatua kahvia (a certain kind of coffee) or tietyn määrä rahaa (a certain amount of money).

Usage considerations: tiettyä signals that the speaker has in mind a specific but not fully defined item, quantity, or quality. It often contrasts with all or every (kaikki) to emphasize selectivity, and it can appear in contexts ranging from information and objects to abstract qualities. The nuance is similar to the English “a certain,” “some,” or “particular,” but Finnish grammar requires the partitive form in many indefinite or non-total expressions.

Related forms and compounds: tiettyä is connected to the broader family around tietty and tietynlaatuinen (of a certain kind), where the idea of specificity or selectiveness is central. The word is common in spoken and written Finnish, contributing to precise but nuanced descriptions.