Mikä outo vehje tämä on?

Finnish allows word order to move around much more freely than English. In a neutral statement, you would usually say:

Tämä on outo vehje.
= This is a strange gadget/device.

In the question Mikä outo vehje tämä on?, the part being asked about is moved to the front:

• Mikä = what
• outo vehje = strange gadget/device
• tämä on = this is

So the structure is roughly What strange gadget is this?

This kind of word order is very natural in Finnish when asking for identification.

Because mikä is the nominative form, and here it matches the role of the thing being identified.

Compare:

• Mikä tämä on? = What is this?
• Mitä sinä teet? = What are you doing?

So:

• mikä is often used when asking what something is
• mitä is often used when asking about an action, an object, or in partitive contexts

In this sentence, the speaker is asking what kind of object this thing is, so mikä is the correct form.

Vehje means something like:

• device
• gadget
• contraption
• thingamajig

It is a somewhat informal word. It often suggests that the speaker does not know the proper name of the object, or finds it odd, complicated, or amusing.

So outo vehje sounds more like a weird gadget / a strange contraption than a formal term like device.

In Finnish, adjectives usually come before the noun, just like in English:

• outo vehje = strange gadget
• iso talo = big house
• vanha auto = old car

So this part is quite straightforward for an English speaker.

Also, in the nominative singular, both words appear in their basic dictionary form:

• outo
• vehje

Because the phrase is in the nominative singular.

In Finnish, adjectives usually agree with the noun in case and number. Here:

• vehje is singular nominative
• outo also appears in singular nominative

So they match.

If the case changed, both would usually change together. For example:

• oudon vehkeen = of a strange gadget / a strange gadget in the genitive
• outoa vehjettä = a strange gadget in the partitive

That agreement is an important feature of Finnish grammar.

Finnish has no articles, so there is no separate word for a, an, or the.

That means outo vehje can mean:

• a strange gadget
• the strange gadget

Which one is meant depends on context.

This is one of the biggest differences from English. Finnish simply does not mark definiteness the way English does.

Tämä means this. It refers to the object the speaker is pointing at, holding, looking at, or otherwise identifying.

In this sentence, tämä is the subject:

• tämä on = this is

So the sentence is asking what this object is.

A very close structural breakdown is:

• Mikä = what
• outo vehje = strange gadget
• tämä = this
• on = is

Yes. Mikä tämä outo vehje on? is also natural Finnish.

The difference is mainly in emphasis and rhythm:

• Mikä outo vehje tämä on? emphasizes outo vehje early: What weird gadget is this?
• Mikä tämä outo vehje on? puts tämä earlier and feels a bit more like What is this weird gadget?

Both are correct and idiomatic.

Finnish word order often affects emphasis more than basic grammatical correctness.

It is fairly neutral, but vehje makes it slightly informal or conversational.

If you wanted something more formal, you might choose a different noun, depending on context:

• laite = device, apparatus
• kone = machine
• väline = tool, implement

So Mikä outo vehje tämä on? sounds like something a normal person might say in everyday speech when they see some unfamiliar object.

Finnish has two common ways to form questions:

1. With a question word, such as:

   • mikä = what
   • kuka = who
   • missä = where

2. With the question clitic -ko/-kö, as in yes-no questions:

   • Onko tämä uusi? = Is this new?

Your sentence is a question-word question, so it does not need -ko/-kö. The word mikä already makes it a question.

Yes, to some extent.

Literally, mikä means what, but in a sentence like this it can feel close to what sort of or what kind of, because it is followed by a noun phrase:

• Mikä outo vehje tämä on?

This is not exactly the same as millainen, which more directly means what kind of / what sort of. For example:

• Millainen vehje tämä on? = What kind of gadget is this like? / What sort of gadget is this?

But in your sentence, mikä is asking for identification: What is this strange gadget?

It can cover both.

Outo can mean:

• strange
• odd
• weird
• unusual

The exact tone depends on context and voice. In this sentence, it could sound curious, puzzled, amused, or slightly suspicious.

So outo vehje could be:

• strange gadget
• weird contraption
• odd device

Yes, very commonly in speech.

In spoken Finnish:

• tämä often becomes tää
• word order may be slightly simplified or made more conversational

So Mikä tää outo vehje on? is a very natural everyday spoken version.

The original sentence with tämä is standard written Finnish.

The basic statement is:

• Tämä on outo vehje.
  = This is a strange gadget.

To turn it into a question asking for identification, Finnish brings the questioned element to the front:

• Mikä outo vehje tämä on?

So a useful pattern is:

• Mikä X tämä on?
  = What X is this?

Examples:

• Mikä eläin tämä on? = What animal is this?
• Mikä merkki tämä on? = What brand is this?
• Mikä rakennus tuo on? = What building is that?

This makes the sentence a very helpful model to learn.