Creating "Any" Words with "tahansa"
In Finnish, you can easily express concepts like "anyone", "anything", or "anytime" by adding the word tahansa immediately after a question word.
For example, pairing kuka (who) with tahansa gives you kuka tahansa (anyone). Similarly, mikä (what/which) becomes mikä tahansa (anything or any).
Declining the Question Word
When you use these free-choice pronouns in a sentence, the question word declines to match its grammatical role, but the word tahansa never changes.
If the word is the subject, it stays in the nominative case (kuka tahansa, mikä tahansa).
When the word acts as a partitive object, kuka becomes ketä (ketä tahansa) and mikä becomes mitä (mitä tahansa).
For the genitive case (showing possession) or an accusative total object, mikä declines to minkä (minkä tahansa).
Time and Place
The exact same rule applies to question words about time and location. By adding tahansa, you can express "anytime" and "anywhere".
- milloin tahansa (anytime)
- missä tahansa (anywhere / in any place)
- minne tahansa (anywhere / to any place)