Breakdown of Aurinko paistaa yhdeksäntenätoista, mikä on onni.
olla
to be
aurinko
sun
paistaa
to shine
yhdeksästoista
nineteenth
mikä
which (relative pronoun)
onni
luck
Questions & Answers about Aurinko paistaa yhdeksäntenätoista, mikä on onni.
Why does the word for "nineteenth" have the -nä ending in yhdeksäntenätoista?
The ending -nä is the essive case. In Finnish, you use this case with ordinal numbers to express that something happens on a specific date. So, yhdeksäntenätoista means "on the nineteenth".
Why is only the first part of yhdeksäntenätoista inflected, while -toista stays the same?
For numbers ending in -toista (the "teen" numbers), only the first part of the word changes when you add case endings. The base ordinal is yhdeksästoista (nineteenth). The first part yhdeksäs changes to yhdeksäntenä, but the -toista part is completely frozen.
Why does the sentence use mikä here instead of joka?
You use mikä as a relative pronoun when it refers back to an entire preceding sentence or idea. Here, mikä refers to the whole fact that the sun is shining on the 19th. If you were referring back to a specific noun right before the comma, you would use joka.
Does onni mean "luck" or "happiness"?
It can mean both! In Finnish, the word onni covers both concepts. In this context, it translates best as "luck" or "good fortune", but it is the exact same noun you see at the root of the adjective onnellinen (happy).
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