Breakdown of Uusi kotimme on pieni, mutta naapurustomme on viihtyisä.
olla
to be
mutta
but
uusi
new
pieni
small
koti
the home
naapurusto
the neighborhood
viihtyisä
cozy
Questions & Answers about Uusi kotimme on pieni, mutta naapurustomme on viihtyisä.
Where is the word for "our" (meidän) in this sentence?
In Finnish, for the first and second person ("my", "your", "our", "your plural"), you can usually drop the pronoun (like meidän) as long as you use the possessive suffix on the noun. Here, the -mme at the end of kotimme and naapurustomme means "our". You could say meidän kotimme, but the suffix alone is completely fine and very common!
Why doesn't the "t" in kotimme change to a "d" (like it does in the genitive kodin)?
Good eye! When you add a possessive suffix to a word in its basic (nominative) form, you attach it to the strong stem of the word. Because the basic word is koti, the "t" stays strong when we add -mme to make kotimme.
Does the adjective uusi need the -mme suffix too?
No, possessive suffixes only attach to the noun, never to the adjectives describing it. Even though adjectives normally have to match the noun's case (like adding an -n or -ssa), possessive suffixes are an exception. So it is just uusi kotimme.
Naapurustomme looks like a very long word. How is it built?
It comes from the word naapuri (neighbor). Finnish often adds the ending -sto or -stö to a word to mean a group or collection of that thing (like how kirja means book, and kirjasto means library). So, a collection of neighbors makes a naapurusto (neighborhood). Finally, we just add the -mme suffix for "our" to the very end!
Learn Uusi kotimme on pieni, mutta naapurustomme on viihtyisä and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free