Breakdown of Kypärä on tärkeä, kun ohitat hänet.
olla
to be
hänet
him / her
tärkeä
important
kun
when (conjunction)
ohittaa
to overtake
kypärä
helmet
Questions & Answers about Kypärä on tärkeä, kun ohitat hänet.
Why is the object hänet ending in -t instead of -n?
For regular nouns, a total object usually looks like the genitive case ending in -n. However, personal pronouns like hän have a special accusative form ending in -t. That is why him or her as a total object is always hänet.
Why is tärkeä in the nominative case rather than the partitive tärkeää?
The subject kypärä (a helmet) is a singular, countable noun. When describing a singular countable noun, the describing adjective takes the nominative case. If the subject were an abstract or uncountable concept, such as cycling, you would use the partitive tärkeää.
Why does ohittaa become ohitat with only one t?
Ohittaa is a verb type 1 and undergoes consonant gradation (tt:t). When you add the second-person singular ending -t, the final syllable becomes closed, which triggers the weak grade. That is why the strong double tt changes to a weak single t in ohitat.
Is it mandatory to have a comma before kun in this sentence?
Yes. In Finnish, a subordinate clause like the one starting with kun is almost always separated from the main clause by a comma. This punctuation rule is much stricter in Finnish than it is in English.
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