Questions & Answers about Meidän automme on iso.
Why is it meidän automme and not just one word for our car?
Finnish often shows possession in two ways at once:
- meidän = our
- -mme attached to the noun = our
So:
- meidän auto = our car
- automme = our car
- meidän automme = also our car
In careful standard Finnish, meidän automme is fully correct. To an English speaker it can feel like double possession, but in Finnish this is normal in formal or standard style.
In everyday spoken Finnish, people very often say just:
- meidän auto
instead of meidän automme.
What form is meidän?
Meidän is the genitive form of me (we).
So:
- me = we
- meidän = our / of us
This is the form used before a noun to show possession:
- meidän talo = our house
- meidän automme = our car
So even though it translates as our, grammatically it is the genitive form of we.
How is automme built?