Learn Hardcore Finnish: Hän pitää erilaisesta musiikista, ja haluaa kuunnella sitä usein. - He/She likes different music and wants to listen to it often.

Hän is the third-person singular pronoun in Finnish, meaning either he or she. Finnish does not have gender-specific pronouns, so the gender of the person is determined by context rather than the pronoun itself.

What does the verb pitää mean in this context, and how is it used?

In this sentence, pitää means to like or to enjoy. Finnish often uses pitää with a noun in a specific case—in this instance, the elative—to express that someone likes something (the construction pitää jostakin). This is an idiomatic way to indicate preference in Finnish.

Why is musiikista in the elative case, and what does that case indicate?

Musiikista is the elative form of musiikki (music). In Finnish, when expressing that one likes something using pitää jostakin, the object is typically placed in the elative case. This case marks the source or the thing from which the preference comes, basically showing what is liked.

How does erilaisesta function in the sentence?

Erilaisesta is the elative form of the adjective erilainen, meaning different or various. It modifies musiikista to describe what kind of music is liked. In Finnish, adjectives agree in case with the noun they modify, so since musiikista is in the elative, the adjective takes the elative form as well.

What does the pronoun sitä refer to in the second clause?

Sitä is a pronoun in the partitive form that refers back to musiikista (the music) mentioned earlier in the sentence. Using sitä avoids repetition, and the partitive form is common in Finnish when the object of a verb like kuunnella (to listen to) is a previously mentioned, indefinite entity.

How does this sentence illustrate some common features of Finnish grammar compared to English?

This sentence demonstrates several distinct features of Finnish grammar:
• It uses case endings (like the elative in musiikista and erilaisesta) instead of articles or prepositions to mark grammatical relationships.
• Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in case, as seen in erilaisesta musiikista.
• Pronouns (such as sitä) are used to refer back to previously mentioned nouns without the need for repetition, and they adopt appropriate case forms.
Also, unlike English, Finnish does not have separate words for definite or indefinite articles, relying entirely on context and case endings.