Breakdown of Hän on vanha. Hän ei ole nuori.
olla
to be
hän
he / she
vanha
old
ei
no / not (negative verb)
nuori
young
Questions & Answers about Hän on vanha. Hän ei ole nuori.
Why is it ei ole instead of just ei on?
In Finnish, to say "is not", you don't just put a negative word in front of the normal verb. You use the negative verb ei (meaning "he/she/it does not") and a special base form of the main verb. For the verb to be, this special form is ole. So, on (is) becomes ei ole (is not).
Does hän mean "he" or "she" in this sentence?
It can mean either! Finnish does not have separate words for "he" and "she". We translate it as "he" here just to make the English translation simple, but without more context, this exact same sentence could perfectly mean "She is old. She is not young."
Do the adjectives vanha and nuori change their form because the sentence is negative?
If I wanted to say "I am not young", would I still use ei ole?
Not quite! The second word, ole, stays the same, but the negative verb changes to match the person. For "I", the negative word is en. So "I am not young" would be En ole nuori. We use ei in this sentence because it specifically matches hän (he/she).
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