Breakdown of Parhain terveisin, Matti Virtanen.
parhain terveisin
best regards (formal closing)
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Questions & Answers about Parhain terveisin, Matti Virtanen.
Why is the word for "best" here parhain instead of paras?
It actually is paras! While parhain can be an old-fashioned alternative to paras in the nominative case, here it is the instructive plural form of paras. The plural stem of paras is parhai-, and adding the instructive ending -n gives us parhain to match the noun's case and number.
What case is terveisin in, and what does it indicate?
It is in the instructive case, which is used to show how or by what means something is done. It is formed with an -n ending and is almost always plural, which you can see from the plural -i- marker in the stem. Here, it translates to "with greetings".
Could I use the adessive case and write parhailla terveisillä to mean "with best greetings"?
Grammatically, the adessive case can express "with" in many everyday contexts, but Finnish specifically reserves the instructive case for these established letter sign-offs. You will see this exact same structural pattern in other common closures like ystävällisin terveisin (with kind regards).