Questions & Answers about He ovat lähellä toisiaan.
A close, word‑for‑word breakdown is:
- He = they (3rd person plural, people)
- ovat = are (3rd person plural of olla = to be)
- lähellä = near / close (by), literally “at/ on closeness” (adessive case)
- toisiaan = each other / one another (in the partitive case)
So literally something like: “They are near to each other.”
- Hän = he / she (singular person, gender‑neutral).
- He = they (plural people).
So:
- Hän on lähellä minua. = He/She is close to me.
- He ovat lähellä toisiaan. = They are close to each other.
Note: Although written Finnish uses hän and he, in everyday spoken Finnish people very often say se (for hän) and ne (for he). But in standard written language, hän/he are used for people.
Finnish verbs agree with the subject in number and person.
- on = 3rd person singular (“he/she/it is”)
- ovat = 3rd person plural (“they are”)
Because the subject he means they, you must use the plural form:
- He ovat lähellä toisiaan. = They are close to each other.
- Hän on lähellä minua. = He/She is close to me.
Lähellä is a so‑called local case form (the adessive case) of a stem related to lähe- (near).
In practice:
- lähellä = “near, close (by), in the vicinity of”
It is used in expressions of being near something:
- Talo on järven lähellä. = The house is near the lake.
- Hän on lähellä minua. = He/She is close to me.
- He ovat lähellä toisiaan. = They are close to each other.
You can think of lähellä as filling the role that English prepositions like near or close to would have. Finnish often uses case endings instead of separate prepositions.
All three are related to “near”, but they express different directions:
lähellä (adessive) – “at / in a near place”
- static location: He ovat lähellä toisiaan. = They are (statically) close to each other.
lähelle (allative) – “to a near place”
- movement towards: Menin lähelle häntä. = I went close to him/her.
läheltä (ablative) – “from a near place”
- movement away from: Tulimme läheltä kaupunkia. = We came from near the city.
In your sentence, there is no movement, just a state of being close, so lähellä is used.
Toisiaan means “each other / one another” and is used when the subject is they.
Morphologically:
- toinen = other, another
- plural stem: toisi-
- toisia = partitive plural of “others”
- -an = 3rd person possessive/reciprocal ending
So toisia + an → toisiaan, literally something like “of each other (them)”, but best translated simply as “each other”.
A few examples:
- He rakastavat toisiaan. = They love each other.
- He auttavat toisiaan. = They help each other.
- He ovat lähellä toisiaan. = They are close to each other.
In He ovat lähellä toisiaan, the phrase olla lähellä jotakuta (to be close to someone) typically takes the partitive for the person you are close to.
Compare:
- Hän on lähellä minua. (minua = partitive)
He/She is close to me. - Olen lähellä sinua.
I am close to you. - He ovat lähellä toisiaan. (toisiaan = partitive)
They are close to each other.
So toisiaan is in the partitive because it fills the same slot as minua/sinua/häntä in that pattern, and that slot is partitive.
Both toisiaan and toisensa are reciprocal forms, but they appear in different cases, depending on what the verb or construction requires.
- toisiaan = partitive (“each other” as partitive object/complement)
- toisensa = genitive/accusative (“each other” as total object)
Examples:
He rakastavat toisiaan.
They love each other.
→ rakastaa normally takes the partitive, so toisiaan.He näkivät toisensa.
They saw each other.
→ nähdä can take a total object, so toisensa.He ovat lähellä toisiaan.
They are close to each other.
→ olla lähellä jotakuta uses partitive, so toisiaan is correct here.
It can mean either, depending on context.
Physical: They are standing/sitting near one another.
- e.g. describing people packed closely on a bench.
Emotional / relational: They have a close relationship.
- e.g. siblings who get along very well.
Context usually makes it clear. If you specifically want to emphasize an emotional relationship, you can also use läheinen (“close, intimate”):
- He ovat hyvin läheisiä. = They are very close (emotionally).
Finnish word order is quite flexible, but some versions sound more natural than others.
Most natural for this sentence:
- He ovat lähellä toisiaan. ✓ (neutral, standard)
- Lähellä toisiaan he ovat. ✓ (possible, slightly emphasizing “close to each other”)
He ovat toisiaan lähellä is grammatically understandable but sounds unusual and marked; learners should stick to:
He ovat lähellä toisiaan.
Use olla lähellä + partitive pronoun:
- He ovat lähellä minua. = They are close to me.
- He ovat lähellä sinua. = They are close to you (sg).
- He ovat lähellä meitä. = They are close to us.
- He ovat lähellä teitä. = They are close to you (pl).
- He ovat lähellä heitä. = They are close to them.
All the underlined pronouns are in the partitive, just like toisiaan in the original sentence.
- He in Finnish is pronounced roughly [he], like “heh” in English, but short and clean.
- It has nothing to do with the English pronoun he; it always means they (people) in standard Finnish.
Because of the capital H and context, Finnish speakers don’t confuse it with English he, but for learners it’s good to remember:
- hän = he / she (singular)
- he = they (plural)