Word
Mekaanikot eivät ole huolissaan, vaan he ovat raivoissaan.
Meaning
The mechanics are not worried, but instead they are furious.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Mekaanikot eivät ole huolissaan, vaan he ovat raivoissaan.
olla
to be
he
they
ei
no / not (negative verb)
vaan
but rather (after a negative)
Questions & Answers about Mekaanikot eivät ole huolissaan, vaan he ovat raivoissaan.
How do the words huolissaan and raivoissaan get their meaning?
These are state adverbials formed using the plural inessive case (meaning 'in') plus a possessive suffix. Huoli means 'worry' and raivo means 'fury'. Literally, they translate to 'in their worries' and 'in their furies'. This is a common Finnish structure for expressing a person's state of mind.
Why do both huolissaan and raivoissaan end in -aan?
The -aan ending is the third-person possessive suffix ('their' or 'his/her'). Because these state expressions are 'subject-bound', the possessive suffix must match the subject. Here, the subjects are mekaanikot and he (they). If the sentence was 'We are furious', it would change to match the 'we' subject: Me olemme raivoissamme.
Are these state adverbials always in the plural form, even for a single person?
Yes, the base word is always in the plural case (using the plural marker -i- before the -ssa- case ending) for these specific idioms, regardless of how many people you are talking about. Even a single mechanic would be raivoissaan (literally 'in his/her furies'), not in the singular.
Why does the sentence use vaan instead of mutta for 'but'?