Breakdown of Toinen auto on automaatti ja toinen on manuaali.
olla
to be
auto
car
ja
and
toinen
other, another; second
manuaali
manual transmission
automaatti
automatic transmission
Questions & Answers about Toinen auto on automaatti ja toinen on manuaali.
Why does this sentence use toinen for 'one' instead of yksi?
In Finnish, when you are talking about exactly two things and contrasting them ('one is X, the other is Y'), you use the pair toinen ... toinen .... If you used yksi, it would sound like you are merely counting.
Why do we use toinen for 'the other' here instead of muu?
You use toinen when referring to the other item in a specific, limited set of two. Muu is used for an open-ended 'other' or 'else', like if you were talking about 'some other car' (joku muu auto) out of all the cars in the world.
Are automaatti and manuaali in the partitive case here?
No, they are in the nominative (basic) form. Even though we are describing what kind of cars they are, these words are nouns here ('an automatic', 'a manual'). In 'A is B' sentences, a singular noun describing the subject is usually in the nominative.
Could I leave out the second on and just say '...ja toinen manuaali'?
Yes, you can! Just like in English ('One car is an automatic and the other a manual'), it is very common in written and spoken Finnish to drop the second verb to avoid repeating it.
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