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Questions & Answers about Tervetuloa kotiimme!
What kind of word is tervetuloa?
Tervetuloa is a fixed Finnish welcome expression. For a learner, the easiest way to treat it is simply as the standard word used to welcome someone.
Historically, it is connected to terve and tulo, and grammatically it is an old set form, but in modern Finnish you do not usually need to build it yourself. You just learn tervetuloa as the normal expression.
Why doesn’t tervetuloa change depending on whether I’m welcoming one person or several people?
Because tervetuloa normally stays the same. Finnish does not change this word for singular vs. plural addressees in the way English might make you expect.
So you can say Tervetuloa! to:
- one guest
- several guests
- a whole group
If you want, you can add names or other words to make it clearer who is being welcomed, but tervetuloa itself usually does not change.
What does the ending -mme in kotiimme mean?