He hymyilevät toisilleen kahvilassa.

They smile at each other in the café.

Breakdown of He hymyilevät toisilleen kahvilassa.

• -ssa: in
• kahvila: the café
• hymyillä: to smile
• he: they
• toisilleen: to each other

Questions & Answers about He hymyilevät toisilleen kahvilassa.

Why does He mean they here and not he?

In Finnish, he (lowercase in the middle of a sentence) is the 3rd person plural pronoun, meaning they (for people).

• he = they (people, plural)
• hän = he / she (one person, gender-neutral)

So He hymyilevät… = They smile…, not He smiles…. The capital H is just because it starts the sentence, not because it is singular or male.

How does the verb hymyilevät relate to the dictionary form hymyillä?

Finnish dictionaries list verbs in their basic form (the infinitive), which here is hymyillä (“to smile”).

To say they smile, the verb is conjugated:

• minä hymyilen – I smile
• sinä hymyilet – you (singular) smile
• hän hymyilee – he/she smiles
• me hymyilemme – we smile
• te hymyilette – you (plural/formal) smile
• he hymyilevät – they smile

So hymyilevät is 3rd person plural, present tense of hymyillä.

Why does hymyilevät end in -vät?

The ending -vät marks 3rd person plural in the present tense for many Finnish verbs whose stem ends in a vowel.

• 3rd person singular: hän hymyilee (no -v-)
• 3rd person plural: he hymyilevät (-vät added)

Compare with other verbs:

• hän puhuu → he puhuvat (they speak)
• hän asuu → he asuvat (they live)

The choice between -vat and -vät follows vowel harmony. Since hymyile- has front vowels (y, i, e), it takes -vät.

What exactly does toisilleen mean, and why is that form used?

Toisilleen comes from toinen (“the other, another”) and is used to express “to each other / to one another”.

Morphologically:

• toinen = (an)other
• stem: toisi-
• toisille = to/for the others (allative plural: “to the others”)
• toisilleen = to each other (with the 3rd-person possessive suffix -en)

The verb hymyillä (“to smile”) normally uses the allative case for the person you smile to:

• hymyillä jollekulle = to smile to someone
• he hymyilevät toisilleen = they smile to each other

So toisilleen is the natural way to express reciprocal action (“each other”) with verbs like hymyillä.

Could you use toisiaan instead of toisilleen here?

No, not with hymyillä in standard usage.

• toisilleen (allative) is used with verbs that take “to someone”:

  • hymyillä toisilleen – smile to each other
  • kirjoittaa toisilleen – write to each other

• toisiaan (partitive) is used with verbs that take a direct object:

  • rakastaa toisiaan – love each other
  • nähdä toisensa / toisiaan – see each other

So:

• ✅ He hymyilevät toisilleen.
• ❌ He hymyilevät toisiaan. (unidiomatic for “smile at each other”)

What does the ending -ssa in kahvilassa mean?

The ending -ssa / -ssä marks the inessive case, which usually corresponds to “in” (and often “at”) in English.

• kahvila = café
• kahvila + ssa → kahvilassa = in/at the café

Other examples:

• talo → talossa = in the house
• koulu → koulussa = in/at school

So kahvilassa expresses the location: the action is happening in/at a café.

How would the meaning change if it were kahvilaan instead of kahvilassa?

Kahvilaan uses the illative case, which usually means “into (a place)” or “to (a place)”:

• kahvilassa = in/at the café (location)
• kahvilaan = into/to the café (movement)

Your sentence uses kahvilassa because they are already there, smiling in the café, not going to it.

Why is there no word for “the” or “a” before kahvila?

Finnish has no articles like “a/an” or “the”. The word kahvila or kahvilassa on its own can mean:

• a café or the café, depending on context.

So kahvilassa can be translated as “in a café” or “in the café”. The difference is understood from context, not from grammar.

Can the word order be changed, for example to Kahvilassa he hymyilevät toisilleen?

Yes. Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and both are grammatically correct:

• He hymyilevät toisilleen kahvilassa.
• Kahvilassa he hymyilevät toisilleen.

The basic meaning stays the same, but the emphasis changes:

• Starting with He emphasizes who is smiling.
• Starting with Kahvilassa emphasizes where this is happening, like “In the café, they smile at each other.”

Can you drop the He and just say Hymyilevät toisilleen kahvilassa?

Grammatically, yes: the verb ending -vät already indicates 3rd person plural, so he is not strictly necessary.

However:

• He hymyilevät toisilleen kahvilassa. sounds natural and neutral.
• Hymyilevät toisilleen kahvilassa. is possible but usually needs clear context (for example, when continuing a description where the subject is already obvious). On its own, it can sound a bit like a fragment or a note in a description.

So in most beginner-level contexts, it’s safer and more natural to keep the pronoun.

Does he refer only to people, or can it also be used for animals and objects?

He is primarily used for people (or personified entities). For non-human things in the plural, Finnish usually uses:

• ne = they (for things, animals, informal speech)

For example:

• He ovat ystäviä. – They are friends. (people)
• Ne ovat puita. – They are trees. (things)

In your sentence, He hymyilevät toisilleen kahvilassa, he clearly indicates people smiling at each other.