Breakdown of Oudon näköinen mies on ymmärtävinään ja nyökyttelee, mutta hänen katseensa on tyhjä.
olla
to be
hän
he / she
mutta
but
ja
and
mies
man
ymmärtää
to understand
outo
strange
tyhjä
empty
näköinen
-looking / looking like
katse
gaze
nyökytellä
to nod repeatedly
Questions & Answers about Oudon näköinen mies on ymmärtävinään ja nyökyttelee, mutta hänen katseensa on tyhjä.
How is ymmärtävinään formed here to mean 'pretending to understand'?
This is the quasi-construction (kvasirakenne). It pairs the verb olla (here on) with the present active participle of ymmärtää (ymmärtävä). To form it, you take the participle stem and add the fixed ending -vinään, which contains the third-person possessive suffix -än. Together, on ymmärtävinään means he is pretending or acting as if he understands.
Why is the word for 'strange' in the genitive form (oudon) in the phrase oudon näköinen?
Adjectives ending in -näköinen (looking) require the preceding descriptive word to be in the genitive case. Because of this rule, the nominative outo (strange) becomes oudon to form oudon näköinen (strange-looking).
The verb for 'nods' is nyökyttelee. How does this differ from the base verb nyökätä?
Nyökyttelee is a frequentative verb. The suffix -ele- indicates that an action is repeated, continuous, or casual. While nyökätä means to nod once, nyökyttelee means he is continuously or repeatedly nodding his head.
We have hänen before katseensa. Could we drop hänen and just say mutta katseensa on tyhjä?
Yes, you could. In standard Finnish, the third-person genitive pronoun (hänen or heidän) is optional as long as the possessive suffix (-nsa or -nsä) is attached to the noun. However, including hänen is very common for clarity. Just remember that while the pronoun is optional, you can never drop the suffix itself!
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