Questions & Answers about Ovatko opiskelijat koulussa?
How do we say "in the" school using koulussa?
We take the basic word for school, koulu, and attach the ending -ssa, which means "in". The word koulu has a non-gradating stem, meaning the core word doesn't change or lose any letters before we glue the -ssa to the end.
Why does the word use -ssa instead of -ssä?
This is because of vowel harmony. The word koulu has the back vowels o and u. In Finnish, words with back vowels take endings with back vowels, so we must use -ssa rather than -ssä.
How does the word ovatko turn this into a question?
It combines the verb ovat ("they are") with the question particle -ko. In Finnish, you form a yes/no question by taking the main verb, moving it to the front of the sentence, and adding -ko (or -kö) to it.
How do we know opiskelijat is plural?
The basic, singular word for student is opiskelija. Adding the letter -t at the very end is the standard way to make a noun plural. Notice that because the subject is plural (students), the verb must also be in the plural form (ovat, not on).
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