Questions & Answers about Lintu lentää vihreään saareen.
Why does the adjective vihreä (green) change to vihreään?
In Finnish, adjectives must match the ending of the noun they describe. Because the bird is flying into the island (saareen), the adjective also takes the into ending (called the illative case), becoming vihreään.
How is the into ending formed in the words vihreään and saareen?
To say to or into a place, you usually double the last vowel of the word's stem and add an n. For vihreä, you double the ä and add n to get vihreään. For the island, the stem is saare-, so you double the e and add n to make saareen.
Why does saari (island) change to saare- before adding the ending?
Many old Finnish nature words that end in i change that i to an e when you add grammatical endings. This is why the basic word saari uses the stem saare- before we add the extra e and n.
Could we use saarelle instead of saareen here?
Yes! Both mean to the island. saareen literally means into the island, which is common if the island has a forest or is seen as an enclosed space. saarelle means onto the island, which focuses on landing on its surface. Either works perfectly with the verb lentää.