Breakdown of Vuokra on kallis, mutta huone on uusi.
olla
to be
mutta
but
uusi
new
kallis
expensive
huone
room
vuokra
rent
Questions & Answers about Vuokra on kallis, mutta huone on uusi.
Since this lesson teaches using the genitive form for subjects, why aren't vuokra and huone in the genitive here?
Because this sentence doesn't express an obligation! You use a genitive subject with verbs like täytyy (must). This is just a standard descriptive sentence using on (is), so the subjects (vuokra and huone) stay in their basic dictionary form.
Why is there a comma before mutta in this sentence?
In Finnish, you almost always put a comma before mutta (but) when it connects two complete thoughts that each have their own subject and verb. Since vuokra on kallis and huone on uusi could both stand alone as full sentences, they must be separated by a comma.
Is huone a normal noun, or does its -e ending mean it changes in special ways?
huone is an -e stem word, which is a special and very common group of words in Finnish. While it is in its simple basic form here, if you were to add an ending to it—like saying 'in the room'—that final -e would double to make the stem huonee- before adding the ending (huoneessa).
If the rent and room were plural, would kallis and uusi change too?
Yes! In Finnish, adjectives must agree with the noun they describe, even when they are separated by the word on. If the nouns were plural, the adjectives would also need to take a plural form (for example, uusi would become uudet).
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