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Questions & Answers about Sänky on pehmeä.
Why doesn't Finnish use articles like a or the?
Finnish has no articles. Definiteness or indefiniteness is understood from context, tone, or added words—not from little words like a/the, which simply don’t exist.
What part of speech is on?
on is the 3rd-person singular present tense of the verb olla (“to be”). So sänky on literally means “the bed is.”
Why is sänky in the nominative singular case?
Because sänky is the grammatical subject of the sentence, and subjects of finite verbs normally appear in the nominative case.
Why is pehmeä also in the nominative singular?
When an adjective follows the copular verb olla, it acts as a predicative complement and must agree with the subject in case and number. Since the subject sänky is nominative singular, the adjective pehmeä is nominative singular too.
How would I say “a soft bed” as a noun phrase?
Place the adjective before the noun, both in nominative singular:
pehmeä sänky
How do I make Sänky on pehmeä into a plural sentence (“Beds are soft”)?
You change the subject and adjective to plural nominative and use the plural of olla:
Sängyt ovat pehmeät.
How do I pronounce sänky on pehmeä?
Approximate phonetic: [ˈsæŋ.ky ˈon ˈpeh.me.æ]
• ä sounds like the “a” in English “cat.”
• y is a front rounded vowel, similar to German ü.
Why do both sänky and pehmeä use the letter ä instead of a?
Finnish has vowel harmony: front vowels (ä, ö, y) belong together, and back vowels (a, o, u) belong together. Because sänky contains the front vowel ä, any suffixes or related vowels must also be front—hence pehmeä ends in -ä.
Is the word order subject–verb–adjective fixed in Finnish?
No. Finnish is relatively free in word order thanks to its case system. Sänky on pehmeä is the neutral, unmarked way to say “the bed is soft.” You can shift words for emphasis (e.g. Pehmeä sänky on might highlight “soft bed”), but attributive adjectives (when directly describing a noun) always precede the noun (pehmeä sänky).