Questions & Answers about Missä nuo uudet tuolit ovat?
Why use nuo for "those" instead of ne?
In Finnish, nuo and ne both translate to "those" (or "they" for things). You use nuo when you are pointing at things you can actually see, like chairs across the room. You use ne for things that are out of sight or when you are talking about things in a general sense.
Why do both uudet and tuolit have a -t at the end?
In Finnish, adjectives must match the noun they describe. Because we are talking about multiple chairs (plural), both the adjective (uusi) and the noun (tuoli) get the standard plural ending -t. The demonstrative nuo is already the plural form of tuo (that).
How exactly does the word uusi (new) change into uudet?
Old Finnish words ending in -si are a bit tricky! Before adding the plural -t, the -si turns into -te-. Then, a rule called consonant gradation kicks in to make the word easier to say, which softens the -t- into a -d-. So the steps are: uusi becomes uute-, which softens to uude-, and finally we add the -t to get uudet.
Why is the verb ovat at the very end of the sentence?
In English, we usually put the verb right after the question word ("Where ARE those chairs?"). In Finnish, when you start with a question word like Missä, the rest of the sentence often keeps its normal statement word order (Subject + Verb). So it literally translates as "Where those new chairs are?"
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