Questions & Answers about Esikoinen syntyi vuosi sitten.
Why is vuosi in the basic nominative case here instead of the genitive?
The postposition sitten (ago) requires a singular time word to be in the nominative case, like vuosi (a year) or kuukausi (a month). If it were multiple years, you would use the partitive: kaksi vuotta sitten (two years ago). Remember that this is the opposite of future postpositions like kuluttua, which require the genitive case (e.g., vuoden kuluttua = in a year).
The English translation says "was born", but syntyi doesn't look like a passive verb. Why is that?
In English, "to be born" is a passive construction, but in Finnish, syntyä is a standard active verb that inherently means "to be born" or "to come into existence." Because it's an active verb, it just conjugates normally in the past tense to match the subject: esikoinen syntyi (the firstborn originated/was born).
What is the origin of the word esikoinen?
It is built from the prefix esi-, which means "fore-" or "first" (as seen in words like esi-isä, forefather), combined with a noun-forming suffix. Esikoinen always refers to the firstborn child. As a fun bonus, the word for the youngest child in a family is kuopus.
Could I change the word order to sitten vuosi?
No. When sitten means "ago", it acts strictly as a postposition, meaning it must come directly after the time phrase it modifies. While sitten can be used as an adverb meaning "then" at the beginning or middle of a clause, "a year ago" must always be vuosi sitten.
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