Question 1

What part of speech is tämä, and why is it used before seinä?

Accepted Answer

tämä is a demonstrative pronoun (or determiner) meaning “this.” When it modifies a noun, it behaves like an adjective, agreeing in case and number with the noun it points to. In Tämä seinä on valkoinen, both tämä and seinä are in the nominative singular, giving tämä seinä = “this wall.”

Question 2

Why does valkoinen come after on rather than before seinä?

Accepted Answer

In Finnish, a predicate adjective (the one that describes the subject through the verb olla) follows the verb. So in Tämä seinä on valkoinen, valkoinen is a predicate adjective (“is white”). If you wanted to use valkoinen attributively (directly modifying the noun), it would come before: valkoinen seinä = “white wall.”

Question 3

What case and number are the words in, and why?

Accepted Answer

All three words—tämä, seinä, valkoinen—are in the nominative singular. We use the nominative for the subject of a simple sentence (tämä seinä) and for a predicate adjective that fully describes that subject.

Question 4

How do you form the negative of this sentence (“This wall is not white”)?

Accepted Answer

Use the negative particle ei plus the appropriate negative form of olla:  
• Tämä seinä ei ole valkoinen.  
Here ei is the negator and ole is the 3rd-person-singular negative form of olla (“to be”).

Question 5

How do you turn it into a yes/no question (“Is this wall white?”)?

Accepted Answer

Move on to the front and add the question particle -ko:  
• Onko tämä seinä valkoinen?  
Here onko = on + -ko.

Question 6

How would you say “These walls are white” in Finnish?

Accepted Answer

Use the plural forms of the demonstrative, noun, verb and adjective:  
• Nämä seinät ovat valkoiset.  
 – nämä = plural demonstrative (“these”)  
 – seinät = plural nominative of seinä  
 – ovat = 3rd-person-plural of olla  
 – valkoiset = nominative plural adjective

You may also hear ovat valkoisia (partitive plural) when you’re describing some walls among many.

Question 7

Can you drop seinä and just say “Tämä on valkoinen”? Is that OK?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Tämä on valkoinen (“This is white”) is grammatical if the context makes clear what “this” refers to. However, if you want to specify that this is a wall, you include seinä.

Question 8

How do adjectives agree with nouns in different cases? For example, how would you say “of this wall” or “into this wall”?

Accepted Answer

Adjectives take the same case and number endings as the noun they modify. A few examples with tämä seinä + valkoinen:  
• Genitive (“of this wall”): tämän seinän, valkoisen seinän  
• Partitive (“some of this wall”): tätä seinää, valkoista seinää  
• Illative (“into this wall”): tähän seinään, valkoiseen seinään  
And so on—the adjective always mirrors the noun’s case/number.

Question 9

Is Tämä on valkoinen seinä grammatical, and how does it differ from Tämä seinä on valkoinen?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Tämä on valkoinen seinä (“This is a white wall”) is grammatical. It presents tämä as a pronoun (“this one”) and identifies it as a white wall. You would use it when pointing something out among alternatives: “Which one is the white wall? Tämä on valkoinen seinä.”  
By contrast, Tämä seinä on valkoinen is a straightforward description: “This wall is white.”

Tämä seinä on valkoinen.

Breakdown of Tämä seinä on valkoinen.

Questions & Answers about Tämä seinä on valkoinen.

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Master Finnish — from Tämä seinä on valkoinen to fluency