Questions & Answers about Mistä maasta hän on?
Why do both Mistä and maasta have the "from" ending?
In Finnish, when a question word (like "what") describes a noun (like "country"), they must match! Since you are asking "from what country", both the question word mikä (what) and the noun maa (country) get the elative "from" ending: mikä becomes mistä, and maa becomes maasta.
Why does mistä end in -stä, but maasta ends in -sta?
This is due to vowel harmony. Words with back vowels (a, o, u) take the -sta ending, so maa becomes maasta. Words with front vowels (ä, ö, y) or only neutral vowels (e, i) take the -stä ending, which is why the base word mikä (with its 'i' and 'ä') becomes mistä.
The English translation puts "from" at the end. How does the word order work in the Finnish sentence?
English often leaves words like "from" dangling at the end of a question. Finnish doesn't do this. Because the "from" meaning is baked right into the word endings (mistä maasta), you put this whole "from what country" chunk together at the very beginning of the sentence to ask the question.
Can this sentence also mean "What country is she from?"
Yes! The Finnish pronoun hän is completely gender-neutral. Depending on who you are talking about, this exact sentence translates to "What country is he from?" or "What country is she from?".