Vocab: kaitsma - to protect
to protect; to defend; to try to avoid an assault, attack, violence or danger; to prevent some harmful activity; to stand up for someone or something, to try to justify it; to present a research work to get a degree or diploma
Building blocks
kaits → from the word “kaitse” → means protection, defense
-ma → infinitive ending
It’s derived from the Proto-Finnic: kaiccëdak (to watch over, to guard, to keep safe)
How to use it
What to remember
Whom or what you protect is in the Partitive Case (third base form)
The thing you protect someone/something from is usually in the Genitive Case (second base form) and you add the word “eest” (from)
See the examples below ⬇️
Examples
Õpilane kaitseb avalikult oma teadustöö tulemusi
Literally: “Student defends publicly their research results”
Idiomatically: “The student publicly defends the results of their research”
Õpilane - Noun - Nominative Singular: "Student"
kaitseb - Verb - 3rd Person Singular, Present Tense: "defends"
avalikult - Adverb - Indeclinable: "publicly"
oma - Pronoun - Genitive Singular: "their"
teadustöö - Noun - Genitive Singular: "research"
tulemusi - Noun - Partitive Singular: "results"Politseinik kaitses inimesi ohtliku kurjategija eest
Literally: “Police-officer protected people dangerous criminal from”
Idiomatically: “The police officer protected people from a dangerous criminal”
Politseinik - Noun - Nominative Singular: "Police officer"
kaitses - Verb - 3rd Person Singular, Past Tense: "protected"
inimesi - Noun - Partitive Plural: "people"
ohtliku - Adjective - Genitive Singular: "dangerous"
kurjategija - Noun - Genitive Singular: "criminal"
eest - Postposition - Indeclinable: "from"