Breakdown of Hän haluaa ilmaista itsensä hyvin.
hän
he / she
hyvin
well
haluta
to want
itse
self, oneself
ilmaista
to express
Questions & Answers about Hän haluaa ilmaista itsensä hyvin.
Why do we use itsensä here instead of hänet?
If you used hänet, the sentence would mean 'She wants to express her well' (referring to a completely different woman). Because the person doing the action and the object of the action are the same person, we must use the reflexive pronoun itse (self) combined with a possessive suffix.
How exactly is the word itsensä built?
It is made of the base word itse (self) plus the third-person possessive suffix -nsa/-nsä (his/her/their). Because itse has front vowels (i, e), vowel harmony dictates that we use the front-vowel version of the suffix: -nsä.
Why doesn't the object itsensä have an object ending like -n?
Normally, a full object takes the -n ending. However, Finnish has a rule: whenever you attach a possessive suffix to a word, the -n object ending disappears. So, instead of the impossible word itsennsä, it simply becomes itsensä.
Why is the verb ilmaista (to express) in its basic dictionary form?
This is a standard rule when you combine two verbs. The first verb, haluaa (wants), is conjugated to match the subject hän. The second verb, ilmaista, stays in its basic infinitive form, just like how we say 'wants to express' in English.
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