Questions & Answers about Onko teillä auto?
Why does this sentence use onko (is) instead of a verb for "to have"?
Finnish doesn't have a direct verb for "to have". Instead, it uses a possession structure that literally translates to "on someone is something". Here, teillä means "on you", on means "is", and auto means "a car". So, the literal translation of this question is "Is on you a car?"
What does the -ko in onko do?
The -ko is a question particle. By attaching it to the verb on (is), it turns what would be a normal statement into a yes/no question.
Could I just say Teillä onko auto? to keep the normal word order?
No, that word order doesn't work in Finnish. The rule is that the word carrying the question particle -ko or -kö must always be moved to the very beginning of the sentence. Since on gets the particle here, onko has to be the first word.
Does teillä refer to one person or multiple people?
Teillä comes from the pronoun te, which is the plural "you" (you all). However, Finnish also uses te as a polite, formal way to address a single person, like a customer or a stranger. If you were asking a single friend casually, you would use sinulla instead of teillä.
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