Breakdown of Sinä olet väsynyt, mutta hän on iloinen.
olla
to be
sinä
you
hän
he / she
iloinen
happy
väsynyt
tired
mutta
but
Questions & Answers about Sinä olet väsynyt, mutta hän on iloinen.
Wait, does hän mean "he" or "she"?
hän means both "he" and "she"! Finnish does not have separate pronouns for genders. The English translation says "she is happy" because we had to pick one, but without more context, this sentence could just as easily mean "he is happy".
Do I have to use the pronouns sinä and hän in this sentence?
For sinä, no! You can just say olet väsynyt. Because the verb olet specifically belongs to "you", the pronoun is optional. However, you must keep hän. In Finnish, third-person pronouns generally cannot be dropped.
Would the adjectives väsynyt or iloinen change if we were talking about a man?
No, they stay exactly the same. Because Finnish doesn't have grammatical gender, adjectives never change to match whether someone is male or female.
Why is there a comma before mutta?
In Finnish, you need a comma before mutta (but) when it connects two complete thoughts that both have their own verb. Since olet and on are both verbs, the comma separates the two halves of the sentence.
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