Breakdown of Minkälainen pelle on? Nätti ja hauska.
olla
to be
ja
and
hauska
fun
minkälainen
what kind of
pelle
the clown
nätti
pretty, cute
Questions & Answers about Minkälainen pelle on? Nätti ja hauska.
Could I use millainen instead of minkälainen here?
Yes, absolutely! Both words mean 'what kind of' and are interchangeable in this sentence. Millainen is slightly more standard and common in written Finnish, while minkälainen is very popular in everyday spoken Finnish.
The English translation says 'is he', but there is no word for 'he' in the Finnish sentence. Why?
In this Finnish sentence, pelle (the clown) acts as the subject. It literally translates to 'What kind is the clown?'. The English translation 'What kind of clown is he?' is simply a natural way to express this when the context refers to a specific person.
Why are the describing adjectives nätti and hauska in the basic nominative case instead of the partitive case?
In a basic descriptive sentence, the adjective takes the nominative case if the subject is a singular, countable noun like pelle (a clown). You would only use the partitive case for the adjective if the subject were an uncountable mass noun, like water or coffee.
How would this sentence change if we were asking about multiple clowns?
You would need to use the plural partitive form for the question word, the noun, and the adjectives. It would become Minkälaisia pellejä he ovat? Nättejä ja hauskoja.
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