Questions & Answers about Olemme saarella elokuussa.
Why does elokuu (August) become elokuussa here?
To say that something happens "in" a certain month, you add the inessive case ending -ssa or -ssä. Since elokuu has back vowels (a, o, u), it takes -ssa, becoming elokuussa (in August).
Are all months formed like elokuu?
Yes, all Finnish months end in the word kuu, which means "moon" or "month". Elo relates to "harvest" or "life", making August the "harvest month". When you add -ssa to any month, it always attaches to the kuu part.
Why do we use -lla for the island but -ssa for the month?
The ending -lla usually means "on" a surface, so saarella translates to "on the island". The ending -ssa means "in" or "inside". Even though both are location endings, Finnish specifically uses the "in" ending (-ssa) for months.
The dictionary word for "island" is saari. Why does it change to saare- in saarella?
Many older Finnish words that end in -i change that -i to an -e- before adding grammatical endings. So, the base word saari becomes the stem saare-, and then we add the -lla ending.
Why is there no word for "we" in this sentence?
The verb olemme (we are) already contains the meaning of "we" in its -mme ending. Because of this, the pronoun me (we) is optional and is often dropped in everyday Finnish.
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