Questions & Answers about Missä kymmenes asiakas on?
How do we get kymmenes from the number ten (kymmenen)?
The ordinal ending for most numbers from 3 onwards is -s. For the number ten (kymmenen), the final -n simply changes to an -s, giving us kymmenes (tenth).
Does the ordinal number kymmenes have to match the case of asiakas?
Yes! Ordinal numbers behave just like adjectives. This means they must match the case and number of the noun they describe. Because asiakas (customer) is in the basic nominative case here, kymmenes is also in the nominative case.
Why is the verb on at the end of the sentence?
In English, we say 'Where is X?'. In Finnish, when asking about a location with Missä (Where), it is very common to put the subject (kymmenes asiakas) before the verb on (is). The literal word order is 'Where the tenth customer is?'.
I remember asiakas changes its stem in other cases. What is the stem for this word type?
You have a good memory! Nouns ending in -as (like asiakas) have a strong vowel stem ending in -aa- or -ää-. If you needed to say 'of the customer' (genitive case), it would become asiakkaan. Here, we just use the basic dictionary form (nominative).