Questions & Answers about Heinäkuussa aurinko paistaa.
How do we get Heinäkuussa from the word for July?
The basic word for July is heinäkuu. To say in a month, you add the inessive ending -ssa or -ssä (meaning in). Because heinäkuu has the back vowel u, vowel harmony rules mean we use -ssa, giving us heinäkuussa.
Does heinäkuu mean anything literally?
Yes! Almost all Finnish months end in kuu, which means moon or month. The word heinä means hay. So heinäkuu is literally hay month, referring to the time of year when hay is harvested in Finland.
Why does the sentence start with the time (Heinäkuussa) instead of the subject (aurinko)?
Finnish word order is quite flexible. It is very common to put time expressions at the very beginning of a sentence to set the scene. You could also say Aurinko paistaa heinäkuussa, but starting with Heinäkuussa is very natural.
What form of the verb is paistaa here?
It is the he/she/it form (third-person singular) because the subject is aurinko (the sun). For this specific verb group, the he/she/it form happens to look exactly like the basic dictionary form.
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