Breakdown of Valokuvaaja seisoo minun edessäni.
seisoa
to stand
edessä
in front of
minun
my, mine
valokuvaaja
the photographer
Questions & Answers about Valokuvaaja seisoo minun edessäni.
Why does the word edessä have -ni at the end?
Edessä is a postposition meaning "in front of". When used with a personal pronoun like minun, the postposition must take a matching possessive suffix. Here, the first-person singular suffix is -ni.
Can I leave out the word minun?
Yes, you can just say Valokuvaaja seisoo edessäni. For first and second person pronouns, the genitive pronoun is optional because the suffix -ni already makes it clear who you are talking about.
How is the word valokuvaaja formed?
It is built from valokuva (photograph), which combines valo (light) and kuva (picture). Adding the suffix -ja turns it into the person doing the action, similar to the "-er" ending in English.
Why does edessä end in -ssä? Is it a location case?
Yes! Postpositions in Finnish are often just old nouns in a location case. Edessä comes from the root etu (front) and is in the inessive case (-ssä, meaning "in"). So it literally means "in the front".
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