Questions & Answers about Hän leipoo kakun lauantaina.
How is the word lauantai changed to mean "on Saturday" in this sentence?
To say that something happens "on" a certain day of the week, Finnish adds the ending -na or -nä. This is called the essive case. Because lauantai (Saturday) contains back vowels (a, u), vowel harmony rules mean we use the ending -na, giving us lauantaina.
Why is the word for cake kakun instead of its basic dictionary form kakku?
The word kakku gets an -n ending here because it is the direct object of the sentence (the thing being baked). In Finnish, when you do an action to a single, whole object, you usually add this -n ending to it.
Does hän leipoo mean "she bakes" or "she is baking"?
It can mean both! Finnish does not have a separate continuous tense like English does with "is baking". You figure out the most natural translation from the context. Since this is a planned future event, "She is baking" or "She will bake" both make sense in English.
Could hän also mean "he" in this sentence?
Yes, absolutely. The pronoun hän is gender-neutral and means both "he" and "she". We translated it as "she" for this example, but "He is baking a cake on Saturday" would be just as correct.