Word
He eivät tapaa meitä täällä.
Meaning
They are not meeting us here.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of He eivät tapaa meitä täällä.
me
we
täällä
here
he
they
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
Questions & Answers about He eivät tapaa meitä täällä.
Where does the word tapaa come from?
It comes from the Verb Type 4 word tavata (to meet). In Verb Type 4, the basic dictionary form has the weak consonant (the v in tavata), but the conjugated present tense forms get the strong consonant (the p in tapaa). To make the negative form, you take the he form (tapaavat) and drop the -vat, leaving just tapaa.
Why doesn't the main verb have a personal ending, like tapaavat?
In Finnish negative sentences, the negative word ei does all the work of showing who is doing the action. Here, it becomes eivät (they do not). The main verb that follows is always in its negative form without personal endings, which is just tapaa for Verb Type 4.
Why is the word for us written as meitä instead of me?
Meitä is the partitive form of me (we/us). When a sentence is negative (they are not meeting us), the object of the action must always be in the partitive case. As a bonus, the verb tavata usually takes a partitive object even in positive sentences!
What is the difference between täällä and tässä if both mean here?