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to move forward in air (by aircraft, wings), to fly through air (by impact, wind, etc.), to rush
Building blocks
We can break down lendama
into two parts:
lenda
- fly,-ma
- infinitive ending
Original Estonian/Finnish word. In Finnish they have a similar word: lentää
How to use it
Here’s how you connect answers to various questions:
who flies is indicated by the Nominative case (first base form of a noun),
for what purpose/period is indicated by the Translative case (formed by adding “-ks” to the Genitive form)
where to you are flying is indicated either by the Illative (Genitive + “-sse”) or Allative (Genitive + “-le”), depending on the kind of place you are flying to. All the countries ending on -maa for example get the -le ending
Examples
Pääsukesed lendavad talveks lõunamaale
Literally: “Swallows fly for winter to southern grounds”
Idiomatically: “Swallows fly to southern grounds for winter”
Pääsukesed - Noun - Nom Pl, "Swallows"
lendavad - 3P Present Pl - "fly"
talveks - Noun - Translative Sg, "for winter"
lõunamaale - Noun - Allative Sg, "to southern grounds"
Hispaanias lendas metallitehas õhku
Literally: “In Spain flew metal factory into the air”
Idiomatically: “In Spain a metal factory blew up”
Hispaanias - Noun - Inessive Sg, "In Spain"
lendas - Verb - 3P Sg Ind Past , "flew"
metallitehas - Noun - Nom Sg, "metal factory"
õhku - Noun - Illative Sg, "into the air"
The phrase “õhku lendama” means to blow up/explode.
Literally this translates to “into the air to fly”.
Even though there is a separate word for “to blow up” in Estonian, this phrase is still pretty commonly used.
Lahingus lendasid kuulid läbi autokere
Literally: “In battle flew bullets through car body”
Idiomatically: “In the battle bullets flew through the car body”
Lahingus - Noun - Inessive Sg, "In battle"
lendasid - Verb - 3P Pl Ind Past, "flew"
kuulid - Noun - Nom Pl, "bullets"
läbi - Adverb - "through"
autokere - Noun - Gen Sg, "car body"