Piha on siisti.

to be

Breakdown of Piha on siisti.

• siisti: tidy
• piha: the yard

Questions & Answers about Piha on siisti.

What does Piha mean, and what part of speech is it?

Piha is a noun meaning yard or courtyard. In Finnish it’s a common, singular noun in the nominative case.

What is the role of on in this sentence?

On is the third-person singular present form of olla (“to be”). It functions exactly like English is here.

Why isn’t there any word for “the” before piha?

Finnish doesn’t use articles (no the or a/an). Context tells you whether you mean “a yard” or “the yard.”

Why is siisti in its basic form (not inflected)?

As a predicate adjective, siisti takes the nominative form to agree with the subject piha, which is nominative singular.

Why does the adjective come after the verb, rather than before the noun as in English?

In Finnish, predicate adjectives follow the copula on. If you put siisti before piha, you’d be using it attributively (e.g. siisti piha = “a tidy yard”) rather than predicatively.

How would I say “our yard is clean”?

Attach a possessive suffix to piha:
Pihamme on siisti.
Here –mme marks “our.”

How do I make the sentence plural (“the yards are clean”)?

Pluralize subject, verb, and adjective in nominative:
Pihat ovat siistit.
Here pihat is “yards,” ovat is “are,” and siistit agrees with pihat.