Breakdown of Hänellä on tuhat euroa, mutta hänellä ei ole autoa.
olla
to be
auto
car
hän
he / she
mutta
but
ei
no / not (negative verb)
euro
euro
tuhat
one thousand
Questions & Answers about Hänellä on tuhat euroa, mutta hänellä ei ole autoa.
Why doesn't this sentence use a specific verb for "to have"?
Finnish doesn't have a direct verb for "to have". Instead, it uses a structure that literally means "on someone is". Hänellä is the pronoun hän (he/she) with the -llä ending (on/at), followed by the verb on (is).
Why is the word for euros euroa instead of a plural form?
In Finnish, any number greater than one is followed by the partitive singular case, not a regular plural. So, tuhat (a thousand) is followed by euroa, which is the partitive form of euro.
In the negative part of the sentence, why do we say ei ole instead of ei on?
To make the "have" structure negative, you use the negative verb ei (does not) and the base form of the verb "to be", which is ole. You never use on right after ei.
Why is the word for car written as autoa instead of just auto?
Autoa is in the partitive case. In Finnish, if you do not have something, the thing you lack must be in the partitive case. Since he does not have a car, auto gets the partitive ending -a to become autoa.
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