Se Looks Back
You met se in the very first lesson as it / that. Its bigger job is holding a TEXT together: once a thing has been mentioned, Finnish refers back to it with se — where English says it, Finnish never repeats the noun.
| Ostin uuden puhelimen. Se oli kallis. | I bought a new phone. It was expensive. |
| Missä laukku on? Se on autossa. | Where is the bag? It is in the car. |
Se inflects like any noun as it looks back: sen (its), sitä, siitä, sillä… — the case comes from the new sentence, not from the old one.
| I bought a new phone. It was expensive. | Ostin uuden puhelimen. Se oli kallis. |
Se for things, hän for people
In written Finnish se looks back at things and matters; people get hän. (Spoken Finnish bends this — you will meet se for people in the spoken-language block at B1.)
| We talked about the problem. It is not big. | Puhuimme ongelmasta. Se ei ole iso. |
Your questions are stored by us to improve Elon.io
