Word
Se on englantilainen auto.
Meaning
It is an English car.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Se on englantilainen auto.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
auto
car
englantilainen
English / English person
Questions & Answers about Se on englantilainen auto.
The lesson is about the pronouns minä, sinä, and hän. Why does this sentence use se?
Hän means "he" or "she" and is strictly used for people in standard Finnish. Because a car is an object, we use se, which means "it".
Why do we use the verb form on here?
What does the -lainen ending mean in englantilainen?
The suffix -lainen is attached to place names to describe someone or something that comes from there. Englanti means "England", so adding -lainen turns it into the adjective englantilainen (English).
Where is the word for "an" in the Finnish sentence?
Finnish does not have articles like "a", "an", or "the". The phrase englantilainen auto simply translates to "an English car" or "the English car" depending on what makes sense in the conversation.
Why is englantilainen written with a lowercase "e"?
Unlike in English, Finnish does not capitalize adjectives of nationality or languages. Only the name of the country itself, Englanti, gets a capital letter.