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Questions & Answers about Mies on työssä.
Why does työssä end with -ssä instead of -ssa?
This is because of vowel harmony. The root word työ has the front vowels y and ö. Therefore, its endings must also use front vowels, making it -ssä.
Does työssä literally mean "in work"?
Exactly! The -ssä ending means "in". While English says a person is "at" work, Finnish treats work as a place or state you are inside, so you say työssä.
Since we are learning about negative sentences, would työ change to the partitive case if we said "The man is not at work"?
Why is there no word for "the" before mies?
Finnish does not have articles like "a", "an", or "the". The word mies can mean "man", "a man", or "the man", and you simply figure out which one makes sense from the context.