Questions & Answers about Hän on yhä sairas.
I usually see the word vielä used for 'still'. Why does this sentence use yhä?
Both yhä and vielä can mean 'still' when talking about a situation that is continuing. In this sentence, they are completely interchangeable, so you could perfectly well say Hän on vielä sairas. However, yhä feels slightly more literary or formal, whereas vielä is extremely common in everyday spoken Finnish.
Could this sentence also mean 'She is still sick'?
Yes! The Finnish pronoun hän is completely gender-neutral and translates to both 'he' and 'she'. The correct translation into English depends entirely on the context of who you are talking about.
What is the difference between using sairas and kipeä?
Both words can mean 'sick'. Sairas refers generally to being unwell or having an illness. Kipeä is also used when you catch a bug, but it heavily doubles as the word for physical pain, such as having a sore throat or a hurting knee. Both are perfectly fine to use when you stay home sick from work.
Why is the adjective sairas in the basic nominative form instead of the partitive form (sairasta)?
Because the subject of the sentence (hän) is a specific, countable person. When a sentence describes a specific person, animal, or everyday object, the adjective stays in the basic nominative form. You generally only use the partitive form for describing adjectives when the subject is an uncountable mass noun, like water or weather.
Learn Hän on yhä sairas and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free