Learn Finnish: Missä kissa ja koira ovat? - Where are the cat and the dog?

Missä is the question word for "where" when asking about the location of something. The other basic question words you're learning right now, kuka (who) and mikä (what), ask for a person's identity or a thing's name, not where they are.

Why does the sentence use ovat instead of on?

Ovat is the plural "they" form of the verb olla (to be). Because we are asking about two animals together (a cat and a dog), the subject is plural. If you were only asking about the cat, you would use the singular on: Missä kissa on? (Where is the cat?).

Why does the verb ovat come at the very end of the sentence?

In Finnish questions that start with a question word like missä, the typical word order is [Question Word] + [Subject] + [Verb]. So we put Missä (Where) first, then the subjects kissa ja koira (the cat and dog), and finally the verb ovat (are). This is different from English, which places the verb before the subject.

The English translation says "the cat and the dog", but I don't see a word for "the" in Finnish. Why?

Finnish does not have articles like "a" or "the". The word kissa can mean "a cat" or "the cat", and koira can mean "a dog" or "the dog". You just have to figure out which one makes sense from the context!