Breakdown of Kirjastossa on kaksitoista opiskelijaa ja viisikymmentä tietokonetta.
olla
to be
ja
and
opiskelija
student
kirjasto
library
tietokone
computer
kaksitoista
twelve
viisikymmentä
fifty
Questions & Answers about Kirjastossa on kaksitoista opiskelijaa ja viisikymmentä tietokonetta.
Why does the sentence use on (is) instead of ovat (are) when there are multiple people and things?
In Finnish, sentences that express "there is" or "there are" usually start with the location (kirjastossa) followed by the singular verb on. The verb does not change to plural even if there are many things. Additionally, when a subject is a number greater than one, the verb is always singular anyway!
Why do the words for student and computer (opiskelijaa and tietokonetta) have those endings?
They are in the partitive case. In Finnish, whenever you use a number greater than one, the noun that follows it must be in the partitive singular. The basic nominative words are opiskelija, which becomes opiskelijaa, and tietokone, which becomes tietokonetta.
Why does the partitive ending for tietokone have a double 't' (tietokonetta)?
The basic word for computer is tietokone. In Finnish, nouns that end in the letter -e follow a special rule. When you put an -e word into the partitive case, you must add -tta or -ttä to the end, rather than just a single -a or -ä.
Why does the sentence start with Kirjastossa instead of the subjects?
To say "There are [things] in [location]", Finnish uses a specific word order: Location + verb + things. Unlike English, which uses a filler word like "There" to start the sentence, Finnish simply puts the location first with the "in" ending (-ssa), creating the structure Kirjastossa on... (In the library is...).
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