Breakdown of Minulla ei ole passia.
olla
to be
minä
I
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
passi
passport
Questions & Answers about Minulla ei ole passia.
Why is it Minulla instead of Minä for "I"?
Finnish doesn't have a verb for "to have". Instead, it expresses possession by saying "at someone is". Minulla is the "at me" form of the word minä (I).
Why is the word for passport passia instead of the basic form passi?
Because this is a negative sentence. In Finnish, when you say you don't have something, the thing you don't have must be in the partitive case. Adding -a to passi makes it passia.
If I wanted to say "We don't have a passport", would ei ole change?
No, ei ole stays exactly the same! Because Finnish expresses this literally as "at me is not", the verb part doesn't change to match the owner. To say "we don't have a passport", you only change the first word: Meillä ei ole passia.