No. 195 in Estonian

pidi

"Pidí" means "had to" or "was supposed to" in English.

In a sentence

Ma pidi eile sõbrale helistama.
I had to call my friend yesterday.
Pidi is used here to indicate necessity, implying an obligation to perform an action.
Ta pidi selle raamatu laenutama raamatukogust.
He/She had to borrow this book from the library.
In this context, pidi shows a completed necessity or past obligation.
Kui ta õigesti mõistis, pidi see olema tema märkmik.
If he/she understood correctly, it must have been his/her notebook.
Here, pidi suggests a logical conjecture or assumption in the past.

Hear it in real podcasts

The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “pidi” in actual Estonian podcasts.

Learn it from shows you like

LangTurbo plays Estonian podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.

Get the appDownload on the App Store Get the app Get it on Google Play

Estonian books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).