Breakdown of Opettaja kuulee, että opiskelijat kehuvat toisiaan.
opettaja
teacher
opiskelija
student
kuulla
to hear
että
that (conjunction)
Questions & Answers about Opettaja kuulee, että opiskelijat kehuvat toisiaan.
Why is 'each other' written as toisiaan instead of just toisia?
When the pronoun toinen is used to mean 'each other', it must take a possessive suffix that matches the subject of the sentence. Because the subject is the plural opiskelijat (they), we add the third-person suffix -an to the end of the word.
Why is toisiaan in the partitive case here?
The verb kehua (to praise) is a partitive verb, which means the person being praised must be in the partitive case. So, the base word toinen becomes the partitive plural toisia before we add the -an suffix.
Doesn't toinen normally mean 'second' or 'other'? How does it become 'each other'?
Yes, toinen usually means 'second' or 'other'. However, when you put it in a plural case and add a possessive suffix, like toisiaan (literally 'their others'), it acts as the standard Finnish reciprocal pronoun meaning 'each other' or 'one another'.
What is the dictionary form of the verb kehuvat?
The base form is kehua (to praise). It is conjugated here in the third-person plural (-vat) to match the plural subject opiskelijat (the students).