Questions & Answers about Heillä on tietokone kotona.
Why do we use on here instead of the plural ovat since "they" is plural?
In the Finnish "to have" structure, the verb is always the third-person singular on ("is"). We never change it to match the owner. Literally, the structure translates to "on them is", and the verb stays as on regardless of how many people own the item.
How do we get heillä from the pronoun he (they)?
To say someone has something, we add the adessive ending -llä or -lla (meaning "on") to the owner. For the pronoun he, the stem changes slightly to hei- before we add the -llä ending, making heillä ("on them").
Is tietokone a compound word?
Yes, it is a very logical compound word! It combines tieto (knowledge, information, or data) and kone (machine). So a computer in Finnish is literally an "information machine".
Why is "at home" translated as kotona? Shouldn't it use the "in" ending like kodissa?
While kodissa means physically "inside the house", kotona is a fixed expression that means "at home" in a general sense. It uses an older grammatical ending (-na) that you just need to memorize as a set vocabulary word for now.
Learn Heillä on tietokone kotona and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free