Breakdown of Se tarkoittaa, että hän on pettynyt.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
hän
he / she
että
that (conjunction)
pettynyt
disappointed
tarkoittaa
to mean, to intend
Questions & Answers about Se tarkoittaa, että hän on pettynyt.
Why is there a comma before että?
In Finnish, you must always separate a main clause from a subordinate clause with a comma. Because että (that) starts a subordinate clause, the comma right before it is strictly required. This is an important difference from English, where we almost never put a comma before the word 'that'.
Does the word order change inside the että clause?
No, the word order inside an että clause is generally the same as in a normal main clause. The phrase hän on pettynyt follows the standard Subject-Verb-Adjective order, exactly as if it were a standalone sentence.
The word pettynyt looks a bit like a verb. What kind of word is it?
It translates to the adjective 'disappointed', but it is actually built from the verb pettyä (to get disappointed). The -nyt ending turns the verb into a past participle, which is a form that acts just like an adjective to describe someone's state after something has happened.
Could this sentence also mean 'It means that she is disappointed'?
Yes! The Finnish pronoun hän is completely gender-neutral and means both 'he' and 'she'. You just have to rely on the wider context of the conversation to know exactly who is being talked about.
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