Word
Kuunteleeko poikaystävä häntä?
Meaning
Does the boyfriend listen to her?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Finnish grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Kuunteleeko poikaystävä häntä?
Why is 'her' translated as häntä instead of hän?
Häntä is the partitive form of the personal pronoun hän (he/she). In Finnish, the verb kuunnella (to listen to) always requires the person or thing being listened to to be in the partitive case.
Does häntä mean 'him' or 'her'?
It can mean either! The Finnish pronoun hän is gender-neutral, and so is its partitive form häntä. Without more context, this sentence could also translate to 'Does the boyfriend listen to him?'.
How does the word kuunteleeko form a question?
It starts with kuuntelee, which means 'he/she/it listens'. To turn this into a yes/no question, we attach the question particle -ko to the verb and move it to the very beginning of the sentence.
Is poikaystävä a compound word?
Yes! It is made by combining poika (boy) and ystävä (friend). Just like in English, the combined word poikaystävä means 'boyfriend'.