You are welcome!
callum wrote:1. Is there much of a difference between tundma and teadma? My book says that tundma is "to be acquainted with someone or something" and teadma is "to know the existence of something" or "to know a fact", ...
Their meanings (and their difference) can really depend on the context and what you are specifically talking about. But mostly, yes,
teadma means that you know that such a thing exists and
tunda means that you are more intimately familiar with it.
callum wrote:Meie ei tea seda kooli.
This basically means that we don't (or at least until now, we didn't) know that such a school even existed. If it would have been "
Meie ei tunne seda kooli.", then it would be more about the fact that we are not more deeply familiar with any of its internal aspects (
specific examples follow in positive example), but we (most likely) know about its existence.
"
Meie teame seda kooli." could actually mean pretty much anything from
we know that it exists to whatever, although the meaning should usually stay on the beginning of this spectrum. "
Meie tunneme seda kooli." on the other hand, should mean that we are quite familiar with at least some aspects of this school. Whether it's knowing the building layout (when talking about the school building), so you can navigate in it with ease or know exactly how and where to find specific places in there or locate specific people who work (or study) there; or being familiar with its organizational structure and/or inner workings, etc...
callum wrote:Mina ei tunne seda poissi.
In case of people, it can be more tricky. This can mean that I am not acquainted with him, although it could also mean that I don't know him at all. I guess, in case of people,
tundma maybe used more often in negative sentences than
teadma.
If it would have been "
Ma ei tea seda poissi." then it would most likely mean that I don't know him at all (have never seen him nor heard about him).
In case of positive "
Ma tean seda poissi.", it could mean from
I am familiar with his existence to
I know a great deal of information about him, but it doesn't necessarily mean that he knows me or that we must be acquainted.
"
Ma tunnen seda poissi." most likely means that we are acquainted to each other, likely even good friends.
Also, the verb "
tundma" means also
to feel (/
to sense).
callum wrote:2. Is the partitive usually used when expressing absence? One example is given without the partitive ("Ta ei ole kodus"), but all the other sentences in the chapter use the partitive ("Teda ei ole", "Piretit ei ole linnas", "Tõnu Tamme ei ole siin", etc.).
It depends, but yes, partitive is often used in negation or when something doesn't exist.
"Ta ei ole kodus" -
ta is the subject here:
(s)he is not at homeIn your other examples, the persons are not subjects any more, at least not in the conventional sense - I don't know the exact terminology, so I'm not exactly sure, though. But these sentences translate to something along the lines of: "
There is no him/her", "
There is no Piret in town" and "
There is no Tõnu Tamm in here".
callum wrote:3. Why is the partitive used in: Ma räägin inglise keelt. Are languages you speak always "partial" objects?
Partitive doesn't necessarily mean a partial object. More often than not, it denotes a partial action - either a process or an unbounded action. The opposite of this would be a finite action with a definitive end result - this wouldn't make much sense for the action of speaking a language.
callum wrote:4. "Kui Piret on Tallinnas, elab ta oma isa ja ema juures ja on sageli õhtuti kodus." Here, is "ta oma" one phrase, something like "her own"?
"elab ta" = "ta elab" =
she lives"oma isa ja ema" =
her father and motherThe personal pronouns of third persons are usually not omitted in Estonian, so "
ta" is the subject here. I have read that Estonian is (somewhat) a verb-second language (or whatever it's called, again I don't remember the exact terms), so if the sentence starts with a time, a place or some other "stuff", then it's often most natural that the next (second) one is the verb and then comes the subject. Exactly what you can see in the sentence you provided.
EDIT: I think the correct wording would be maybe: if a sentence starts with an adverb or an adverbial phrase, then it is (usually) immediately followed by the verb and then the subject. It's the same when you shorten the phrase "
kui Piret on Tallinnas", for example "
Tallinnas olles elab Piret oma vanemate juures." or "
Olles Tallinnas(,) elab Piret oma vanemate juures.". Or simply "
Tallinnas elab Piret oma vanemate juures."
These sentences would sound very unnatural if the subject would be before the verb.