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Questions & Answers about Pohjoinen on kylmä.
Why does the English translation use "The" when there is no word for it in the Finnish sentence?
Finnish doesn't have articles like "a" or "the". Whether a word means "a north" or "the north" is understood from context. Because there is only one cardinal direction of north, "the north" is the most natural English translation.
Is pohjoinen normally capitalized in Finnish like "the North" sometimes is in English?
No, compass directions like pohjoinen (north), etelä (south), itä (east), and länsi (west) are written with lowercase letters in Finnish, unless they are the first word of a sentence or part of a specific proper name.
Pohjoinen ends in -nen. Does this mean it's an adjective?
Words ending in -nen can be adjectives (like iloinen meaning "happy"), but they can also be nouns. Here, pohjoinen is used as a noun meaning "the north". There are many common nouns in Finnish that end in -nen, such as nainen (woman) and hevonen (horse).
If I wanted to say "in the north", would I just add the -ssa ending directly to pohjoinen?
Not quite! As a rule, words ending in -nen change that ending to -se- before you attach most grammar endings. So, to say "in the north", you drop the -nen, add -se-, and then add the -ssa ending to make pohjoisessa.