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Learn three forms by heart. Every other case is one of them plus an ending.
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raamat, book
Step 1 of 3Three to learn
Every Estonian word has three forms you learn. The rest you build from the second one.
raamatuof, and whose
which means“of the book”
Whose something is. It's also the base the other eleven endings go onto.
In English: The book's cover, the cover of the book.
omastav (2nd form), mille?, of what?
The same case, on a different word:
Poiss ronis üle aia.
The boy climbed over the fence.
aed, garden, recorded in Ekilex.
No rule gives you these three, so each word's three come straight from the dictionary. We never make one up.