Questions & Answers about Vanhemmat ovat kotona.
Why does vanhemmat mean "parents"? Doesn't it mean "older"?
Yes! Vanhemmat is the plural form of vanhempi, which means "older". In Finnish, the word for "parents" is literally "the older ones".
Why is "at home" translated as kotona instead of using the "in" ending, like kodissa?
The word koti (home) is a common exception. To say you are "at home", you use the essive case ending -na, making it kotona. You usually only use kodissa if you are talking about the physical house or apartment building itself, rather than the cozy concept of being home.
This lesson is about third-person possessive suffixes. How would I change this sentence to say "Their parents are at home"?
You would say Heidän vanhempansa ovat kotona. You must add the genitive pronoun heidän (their). Then, you add the suffix -nsa to the noun. Notice that the regular plural marker -t from vanhemmat disappears when you add a possessive suffix, so the ending attaches directly to the stem as vanhempansa.
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