Word
Hän syntyi yhdentenätoista tammikuuta.
Meaning
He was born on the eleventh of January.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Hän syntyi yhdentenätoista tammikuuta.
hän
he / she
tammikuu
January
syntyä
to be born
yhdestoista
eleventh
Questions & Answers about Hän syntyi yhdentenätoista tammikuuta.
Why is the word for "eleventh" written as yhdentenätoista instead of its basic form yhdestoista?
To say that something happens on a specific date, Finnish uses the essive case, which adds the ending -na or -nä. The basic ordinal number yhdestoista (eleventh) changes to yhdentenätoista to mean "on the eleventh".
Does the -toista part of the number change too?
No! For numbers 11 through 19, only the first part of the word takes the case ending. The root for "first" takes the essive case (yhdentenä), while the -toista part stays exactly the same.
Why is January written as tammikuuta?
When telling the date, the month is always in the partitive case. Adding the partitive ending -ta to tammikuu essentially means "of January".
Why is "was born" translated with just the single word syntyi?
In English, "was born" is built using the verb "to be", but Finnish has a specific active verb for this: syntyä (to be born). Syntyi is just the regular past tense form for "he or she was born".