Word
Hänen rajapyykkinsä on sadan metrin päässä täältä.
Meaning
His boundary marker is a hundred meters away from here.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Hänen rajapyykkinsä on sadan metrin päässä täältä.
olla
to be
hän
he / she
sata
one hundred
täältä
from here
Questions & Answers about Hänen rajapyykkinsä on sadan metrin päässä täältä.
How do we form the distance phrase sadan metrin päässä?
To express how far away something is, Finnish uses a genitive phrase of measurement followed by the postposition päässä. Here, both sata (hundred) and metri (meter) take the genitive ending, becoming sadan metrin. The postposition päässä literally means "in the head of" or "at the end of", so the phrase translates word-for-word as "at the end of a hundred meters".
Why use päässä instead of päästä in this sentence?
Päässä is in the inessive case, which indicates a static location. You use it here because you are simply stating where the marker is currently located. If the sentence described an action starting from that distance (for example, "He shouted from a hundred meters away"), you would use the elative form päästä instead.
Why does this sentence use a "from" case for täältä when the main verb on is static?
Even though the boundary marker is stationary, the distance itself is measured starting from a specific reference point. Finnish uses the ablative case (täältä) or elative case (tästä) to establish that starting point, very much like saying "away from here" in English.
Why does rajapyykki need the possessive suffix -nsä when the sentence already starts with Hänen?