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Puistossa on kuusitoista koiraa.

Puistossa on kuusitoista koiraa.
There are sixteen dogs in the park.
From Lesson 23:Negative possession (ei ole)·Finnish

Breakdown of Puistossa on kuusitoista koiraa.

olla
to be
koira
dog
puisto
park
kuusitoista
sixteen

Questions & Answers about Puistossa on kuusitoista koiraa.

Why does the sentence start with Puistossa instead of the dogs?
In Finnish, sentences that express "there is" or "there are" usually start with the location. Instead of using a dummy word like "there", Finnish simply puts the location first: "In the park is 16 dogs."
Since there are sixteen dogs, why is the verb on (is) instead of ovat (are)?
When a sentence starts with a location to say "there is" or "there are" (an existential sentence), the verb is always the singular on. It doesn't change to plural, even if there are many dogs in that location.
Why is the word for dogs koiraa instead of the basic plural koirat?
In Finnish, any number greater than one must be followed by the partitive singular form of the noun. The basic word is koira, and adding an -a makes it koiraa. So you say yksi koira (one dog), but kuusitoista koiraa (sixteen dogs).
How does the word kuusitoista mean "sixteen"?
Finnish teen numbers are built by taking a basic number and adding -toista. Because kuusi is six, kuusitoista is sixteen. The ending -toista literally means "of the second", referring to the second set of ten.

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