Breakdown of Jos sinulla on velka, sinun pitää maksaa se takaisin.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
sinä
you
jos
if
maksaa
to pay
pitää
must / have to
velka
debt
takaisin
back (direction, returning)
Questions & Answers about Jos sinulla on velka, sinun pitää maksaa se takaisin.
Why does the sentence use sinun pitää instead of sinä pidät?
With obligation verbs like pitää (to have to / must), the person who has to do the action takes the genitive case (the -n ending). So sinä (you) becomes sinun. The verb pitää always stays in the third-person singular form, and the action you must do is in the basic dictionary form, which here is maksaa.
Why is the word for "it" in the basic form se and not sen?
This is a very important special rule for obligation sentences! When the main verb is an obligation verb like pitää, the object of the sentence does not take the usual -n ending. Because of this, we use the basic form se instead of sen.
Could I change the word order to maksaa takaisin se?
It is much more natural to put the object (se) right after the verb (maksaa) and before the directional word (takaisin). While Finnish word order is somewhat flexible, keeping the object close to the verb before words like takaisin (back) sounds the most natural.
As a quick reminder, why does the first part of the sentence use sinulla on?
Finnish doesn't have a direct verb for "to have". Instead, it uses the adessive case (the -lla/-llä ending) on the pronoun, followed by the verb on (is). So sinulla on velka literally translates to "at you is a debt".
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