Questions & Answers about Hän keksi uuden laitteen.
What does hän mean exactly? Does it mean he or she?
Hän is the 3rd person singular personal pronoun, and it can mean either he or she. Finnish does not normally mark gender in this pronoun, so the sentence itself does not tell you whether the person is male or female.
A useful extra note: in everyday spoken Finnish, people often use se instead of hän for people, but hän is the standard written form.
Why is there no word for a in a new device?
Finnish has no articles, so there is no separate word for a, an, or the.
That means uuden laitteen can mean a new device or the new device, depending on context. In this sentence, the natural English translation is a new device.
What form of the verb is keksi?
Keksi is the simple past (often called the imperfect) of the verb keksiä.
So:
- keksiä = to invent, come up with, think of
- hän keksi = he/she invented, came up with, thought of
The present tense would be hän keksii.
Does keksiä only mean to invent?