Questions & Answers about Mikä tämän kurssin aihe on?
Why do we use Mikä here instead of Mitä for "What"?
Choosing between mikä and mitä can still be a tricky refresher! We use the nominative form mikä when asking for the identity of a specific, whole thing—in this case, a single, definable topic (aihe). You would use the partitive mitä if you were asking about an uncountable mass, an abstract concept, or an ongoing action.
Why do both tämä and kurssi get the -n ending in this sentence?
In Finnish, demonstrative pronouns like tämä (this) must agree in case with the noun they describe. Because we need the genitive case to express possession or "of the course" (kurssin), the pronoun must also take the genitive ending -n, becoming tämän.
Is it wrong to say "Mikä on tämän kurssin aihe?" with the verb in the middle?
Not at all! "Mikä on tämän kurssin aihe?" is completely correct and natural. However, pushing the verb on to the very end of the sentence is an extremely common and idiomatic Finnish word order, especially when you are asking for the definition or identity of something.
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