Vocab: nõustuma
to merge together into a larger whole, boundaries disappearing
Building blocks
We can break down nõustuma into different parts:
nõu- - advice, a plan to do something-stu-reflexive causative (“make yourself have X”),-ma- infinitive ending
Thus the final meaning becomes “make yourself have advice/a plan to do something”, meaning that actually “agreeing with somebody” means “make yourself have advice with somebody”.
Maybe you will need a little bit of creativity to connect this mental image with the meaning “to agree”, but hopefully this will help you make it stick!
How to use it
This is pretty straightforward, basically like English!
If you agree with somebody, you need to use the with-case in Estonian (the -ga ending).
Mina nõustun sinuga - “I agree with you”
But that’s not all! We can also indicate that we agree to do something, by using the ma-Infinitive
Ma nõustusin teda aitama - “I agreed to help him”
We can even combine the two:
Ma nõustusin sinuga teda aitama - “I agreed with you to help him”
Examples
Keskerakond nõustus suurvõla eest rohkem intressi maksma
Literally: “Keskerakond agreed of-the-big-debt for more interest to pay”
Idiomatically: “Keskerakond agreed to pay a higher interest for a big debt”
Keskerakond - Noun - Nom Sg, Keskerakond (the "Central Party")
nõustus - Verb - 3P Sg Ind Past, "he/she/it agreed"
suurvõla - Noun - Gen Sg, "of the big debt"
eest - Postposition - "for"
rohkem - Adverb - "more"
intressi - Noun - Part Sg, "[of] interest"
maksma - Verb - ma-Infinitive, "to pay"