Breakdown of On hienoa työskennellä taas yhdessä mentoreina.
olla
to be
yhdessä
together
työskennellä
to work
hieno
great
taas
again
mentori
mentor
Questions & Answers about On hienoa työskennellä taas yhdessä mentoreina.
How is the word mentoreina formed, and what does the -na ending do here?
Mentoreina is in the essive plural case. The essive ending -na expresses being "as" or "in the role of" something. To form it, we take the base word mentori, change the final -i to -e- to attach the plural -i, which gives the plural stem mentorei-. Finally, we add the essive ending -na, resulting in mentoreina ("as mentors").
The current lesson mentions using the strong consonant grade for the essive plural. Does mentori undergo consonant gradation?
No, mentori is a newer loanword, and words like this usually do not undergo consonant gradation in Finnish; the stem remains unchanged. However, if we were using a native word that does gradate, like opettaja (teacher), the essive plural would use the strong grade: opettajina.
Why is the adjective hienoa in the partitive case instead of the nominative hieno?
In Finnish, when a sentence starts with a "zero subject" construction like "It is..." and describes an action (here, the infinitive verb työskennellä, "to work"), the describing adjective must be in the partitive case. So, "It is great" becomes On hienoa because the subject of the sentence is an abstract, uncountable action.
Does the word yhdessä literally mean "in one"?
Yes, literally it is the inessive case (the "in" case) of the number yksi ("one"). However, in practice, yhdessä is the standard, everyday adverb for "together." Thinking of it as "in one group" is a great way to remember its meaning!
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