haastavan

Haastavan is the genitive singular form of the Finnish adjective haastava, meaning challenging or demanding. The adjective haastava is formed from the verb haasta (to challenge) with the suffix -va, and is related to the noun haaste (a challenge). In Finnish, adjectives decline to agree with the noun they modify in number and case, so haastava changes its ending to match the noun. When the adjective appears before a noun in the genitive singular, the form is haastavan, as in haastavan tehtävän, which can be translated as “the challenging task” or more literally “the task of challenging” and is used in constructions like the solving of the challenging task.

Other inflected forms exist for haastava depending on case and number, such as nominative haastava, partitive haastavaa, and various plural forms. The word is commonly used in descriptive, evaluative, and instructional contexts to describe tasks, requirements, processes, or situations that are difficult or demanding. It is often paired with nouns such as tehtävä (task), projekti (project), or prosessi (process).

Examples include: Haastavan tehtävän ratkaiseminen vaatii suunnittelua. (Solving the challenging task requires planning.) Tämä on haastava projekti, mutta opettavainen. (This is a challenging project, but instructive.)

Related terms include haaste (a challenge) and haasteellinen (also meaning challenging). While haastava is widely understood, haasteellinen is another common synonym in contemporary Finnish, with subtle stylistic differences in certain contexts. Haastavan, therefore, serves as a functionally important inflected form within Finnish adjective agreement.