Breakdown of Tämä ikäryhmä matkustaa raitiovaunulla päivittäin.
tämä
this
matkustaa
to travel
päivittäin
daily
raitiovaunu
tram
ikäryhmä
the age group
Questions & Answers about Tämä ikäryhmä matkustaa raitiovaunulla päivittäin.
Why does raitiovaunu take the adessive ending -lla here?
In Finnish, the adessive case (-lla / -llä) is used to express the instrument or means by which an action is performed. Whenever you travel 'by' a vehicle, you use this case, just like in autolla (by car) or junalla (by train).
How is the adverb päivittäin constructed?
It uses the distributive suffix -ttain / -ttäin, which means 'every' or 'by a certain unit'. This suffix attaches to the plural stem of the noun. The plural stem of päivä is päivi-, so adding the suffix gives us päivittäin (daily). You can do the same with viikko to get viikoittain (weekly).
Since ikäryhmä refers to multiple people, why isn't the verb plural?
Words like ryhmä (group), perhe (family), and tiimi (team) are collective nouns. In Finnish, collective nouns are strictly grammatically singular when referring to a single group, so they always take a third-person singular verb like matkustaa.
What are the component words of raitiovaunu?
It is a compound of raitio (an older word meaning a track or beaten path) and vaunu (wagon or carriage). So a tram is quite literally a 'track wagon'.
Learn Tämä ikäryhmä matkustaa raitiovaunulla päivittäin 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