Word
Lapset leikkivät metsässä haravoilla.
Meaning
The children play in the forest with rakes.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Lapset leikkivät metsässä haravoilla.
metsä
forest
lapsi
child
leikkiä
to play (children, with toys)
harava
rake
Questions & Answers about Lapset leikkivät metsässä haravoilla.
Why does haravoilla mean "with rakes"?
In Finnish, the adessive case (ending in -lla or -llä) is used to express the tool or instrument you use to do an action. This translates to "with [a tool]" in English. Because the children are using multiple rakes, the word is in the adessive plural.
How is haravoilla formed from the base word harava (a rake)?
When creating a plural stem for a word ending in -a like harava, the final -a changes to an -o before adding the plural marker -i. This gives the plural stem haravoi-. Finally, you attach the adessive case ending -lla, resulting in haravoilla.
Why is "in the forest" metsässä rather than metsällä?
The inessive case (-ssa or -ssä) means being inside something. In Finnish, a forest (metsä) is treated as a three-dimensional space that you go inside, rather than an open surface. Therefore, it takes the "in" ending (metsässä) instead of the "on" ending.
Why does the verb leikkivät end in -vät?