Vocab: korraldama

to organize

to organize

Building blocks

• korra- “weak” form of “kord” - order, “a time”

• -lda- factitive (“to make a thing have order”)

• -ma - infinitive ending

This word has traveled a lot!

Finnish has cognate to “kord” [order] - “kerta”, which in turn can be found in Lithuanian: “kartas”.

That word entered Lithuanian through Sanskrit(!).

How to use it

Usually, you are organizing events I hope!

What you organize is in the Partitive case if you are in the process of doing it and don’t want to convey whether it’s getting done or not:

Korraldan sünnipäevapidu [Partitive Singular]

“I am organizing a birthday party (at the moment)” - we don’t know whether you will finish organizing it or not.

If you are sure about doing it until the end, i.e. until the event is fully organized, then you use the Genitive (in Singular) or the Nominative (in Plural) for the thing you organize:

Korraldan sünnipäevapeo [Genitive Singular]

“I am organizing a birthday party (until it is done)” - after this sentence, it has been established that the party is fully organized.

Korraldan kõik aasta üritused [Nominative Plural]

“I am organizing all events of the year” - same story, you’ll organize all of them until they are fully organized.