Vocab: lendama

to fly

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"