Breakdown of Hänen mielestään elokuva oli tylsä.
olla
to be
hän
he / she
elokuva
movie
tylsä
boring
mielestä
in the opinion of (minun mielestäni = in my opinion)
Questions & Answers about Hänen mielestään elokuva oli tylsä.
How exactly is the word mielestään built?
It comes from the base word mieli (mind). First, Finnish adds the 'out of' ending -stä to get mielestä. Then, it adds the third-person possessive suffix -än (his/her) to make mielestään. So, when a Finnish speaker says 'in his opinion', they are literally saying 'out of his mind'!
How would I use the additive clitic -kin (also/too) in this sentence?
You attach -kin directly to the word you want to emphasize. If you want to say 'The film was ALSO boring' (meaning the book was boring, and the film was too), you attach it to the movie: Hänen mielestään elokuvakin oli tylsä. If the film was long and ALSO boring, you attach it to the adjective: Hänen mielestään elokuva oli tylsäkin.
Can I drop Hänen and just say Mielestään elokuva oli tylsä?
No, you need to keep Hänen here. In standard Finnish, you are allowed to drop first and second-person pronouns like minun (my) or sinun (your) because the suffix at the end of the noun makes the owner clear. However, third-person pronouns like hänen (his/her) and heidän (their) cannot be dropped.
Why is tylsä in its basic form here instead of the partitive case (tylsää)?
Because elokuva (movie) is a specific, countable noun. When a sentence follows the 'A is B' structure and the subject is a single, complete thing, the describing adjective stays in the basic nominative form. You would only use the partitive tylsää if the subject was an uncountable mass noun (like weather or food) or an abstract concept.
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