Questions & Answers about Tämä hattu on ruma.
Since this lesson is about millainen, how would I ask the question that leads to this sentence?
You would ask Millainen tämä hattu on? (What kind of hat is this?). The adjective ruma (ugly) directly answers the millainen question by providing the quality of the hat.
Could I use minkälainen to ask about this hat instead?
Yes! You could ask Minkälainen tämä hattu on? which means exactly the same thing. Millainen and minkälainen are interchangeable interrogative adjectives meaning 'what kind of', though millainen is slightly more common in everyday speech.
Why is the adjective ruma in the basic nominative case here instead of the partitive?
Because hattu is a countable, individual object and we are describing it as a whole. If you were describing an uncountable mass noun, like soup or abstract weather, you would use the partitive case for the adjective (for example, Tämä keitto on pahaa meaning 'This soup is bad').
Does ruma only describe physical ugliness?
It usually describes physical appearance, but it is also used for bad behavior or inappropriate things. For instance, ruma sana means a swear word, and ruma temppu means a mean or dirty trick.
Learn Tämä hattu on ruma and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free