These are kinda weird so I had to stop and think a bit. I think duolingo is just wrong.
Edit: edited a lot because I was confused.
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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I was leaning towards Duolingo being incorrect as well. But in the past we had:
- Minulla on uusi poikaystävä.
- Minulla on poikaystävää.
But silently #2 was changed to:
Minulla on poikaystävä.
However in this case we are talking about a single boyfriend, not the vastness of deep blue water.
"Minulla on poikaystävää" means "I have (some) boyfriend" in the same way as "I have (some) water" or "I have (some) sand".
"Minulla on poikaystävä" is "I have (a/the) boyfriend"
If it's a countable unit, use the basic form. Boyfriends can be counted, but water and sand can not.
In "minulla on poikaystävää" you are talking about the vastness of boyfriend, though.
It's a very interesting phrase when used alone :D
Either it means that you are pieces of a boyfriend. That is, maybe you cut a third of the right side of his butt? But why?
Or maybe it's like "I've got some boyfriend to sell you. Would you like to have three and a quarter? Or about a half?"
I guess this has happened on Duolingo because many conjugations conjugate with the partitive form. "Minulla on ikävä poikaystävää" can also be paraphrased to "Minulla on poikaystävää ikävä" without changing anything but secondary nuances in the meaning. And maybe someone wanted to accept the "Minulla on poikaystävää ikävä" and accidentally added "poikaystävää" as a translation of "boyfriend"?
Probably it's been talking about the water of some specific planet, for example? If there's a planet or a moon 100 % covered by water, then you can probably see the whole water as one large unit? In that case you could say "The water of the planet is a blue and deep one".
Typically, if you use it in partitive form, it's the same as if you had neither "the", "a" nor "an" in front of the word. And if you use nominative or genitive (accusative), then it typically means there is a "the" or "a" or "an" in front of the word.
So, to recap: It's for the same reason why you'd say "the water is a blue one". It's a very confusing phrase in English, but you can figure out a meaning for it. And that's the precisely same thing with the Finnish phrase you've given. It's a very confusing phrase, but you can figure out a meaning for it. Kind of.