Breakdown of Ne oli niin fiksuja, et ne keksi uuden älypuhelimen vuonna 2010.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
uusi
new
vuosi
year
Questions & Answers about Ne oli niin fiksuja, et ne keksi uuden älypuhelimen vuonna 2010.
Why does this sentence use Ne oli and ne keksi instead of He olivat and he keksivät?
This is standard spoken Finnish. The pronoun ne (literally 'those' for things) is almost always used for people instead of he. Crucially, when you use ne, the verb takes the third-person singular form (oli, keksi) rather than the plural.
How do you say vuonna 2010 out loud, and why doesn't the number change its case?
You say vuonna kaksituhattakymmenen. To express a specific calendar year, Finnish puts the word vuosi into the essive case (vuonna) and follows it with the exact number in the basic uninflected nominative case. You do not need to add any case endings to the number itself.
What does the word et mean here?
It is a very common spoken language shortening of the conjunction että (that). Here it forms the structure niin... että (so... that).
Why does uuden älypuhelimen end in -n?
It is the total object of the verb keksi (invented). Because the action is completed and they invented one whole new smartphone, the object takes the accusative case, which looks exactly like the genitive ending in -n.
Why is the adjective fiksuja in the partitive plural instead of the nominative plural?