Hän on vähän sairas tänään.

He/She is a bit sick today.

Breakdown of Hän on vähän sairas tänään.

• olla: to be
• hän: he/she
• tänään: today
• sairas: sick
• vähän: a bit

Questions & Answers about Hän on vähän sairas tänään.

What does hän mean exactly? Is it he or she?

Hän means “he” or “she” – Finnish does not mark gender in the third person singular.

So hän on vähän sairas tänään can mean:

• He is a little sick today.
• She is a little sick today.

Context has to tell you whether the person is male or female (or you just leave it neutral in English if you want).

Why is it hän on and not something like hän ole or hän olen?

The verb olla (to be) is conjugated. For the present tense:

• minä olen – I am
• sinä olet – you (sg.) are
• hän on – he / she is
• me olemme – we are
• te olette – you (pl./formal) are
• he ovat – they are

So in the sentence, on is the correct 3rd person singular form: hän on = he/she is.

What does vähän mean, and is it a noun or an adverb here?

Vähän literally comes from the word for “a little (amount)”, and in many contexts it behaves as an adverb meaning:

• a little, a bit, slightly, somewhat

In hän on vähän sairas tänään, vähän modifies the adjective sairas (sick), so the meaning is:

• “He/She is a bit sick today.” / “He/She is slightly ill today.”

Grammatically, you can treat vähän here as an adverb of degree, like English “a little” in a little sick.

Why is the word order on vähän sairas and not on sairas vähän?

In Finnish, degree words like vähän, erittäin (very), todella (really) normally come before the adjective they modify:

• vähän sairas – a little sick
• erittäin sairas – very sick
• todella väsynyt – really tired

On sairas vähän would sound very odd in normal Finnish; it’s not a standard way to say this. So the neutral order is:

• hän on vähän sairas = he/she is a bit sick.

Could the word order change to Tänään hän on vähän sairas or Hän on tänään vähän sairas?

Yes. All of these are grammatically correct, but they differ slightly in emphasis:

• Hän on vähän sairas tänään.
  Neutral; tänään is just added at the end as “today”.

• Hän on tänään vähän sairas.
  Slight emphasis on today as the time frame of being a bit sick.

• Tänään hän on vähän sairas.
  Strongest focus on today: Today, he/she is a bit sick (maybe unlike other days).

Finnish word order is flexible, but time words like tänään are often at the beginning or near the end, and the basic structure here remains clear in all three versions.

What exactly does tänään mean, and is it in some special case?

Tänään means “today”.

It comes historically from tämä (this) + a form of aamu (morning), but for a learner it’s enough to treat tänään as a fixed adverb of time, like “today”, not as a regular declined noun form.

So you can learn it as a basic vocabulary item:

• tänään = today
• huomenna = tomorrow
• eilen = yesterday

Why is there no word for “a” or “the” in this sentence?

Finnish does not have articles like English a/an or the.

So:

• Hän on sairas. can mean
  
  • He is sick.
  • He is a sick person. (depending on context)

In Hän on vähän sairas tänään, you just understand the intended English article from context when translating. There is no need to add anything in Finnish for “a” or “the”.

What’s the difference between sairas and other words like kipeä?

Both relate to being unwell, but they’re used slightly differently:

• sairas

  • generally ill, sick
  • can refer to illnesses in general, mental or physical
  • hän on sairas – he/she is ill (more general)

• kipeä

  • more sore, painful, hurting
  • often used about a body part: kurkku on kipeä – my throat is sore
  • but hän on kipeä can also mean “he/she is sick” in everyday speech, especially with children

In Hän on vähän sairas tänään, sairas is a neutral way to say “sick / ill” without specifying where or how.

How would I say “He is very sick today” instead of “a little sick”?

You can replace vähän with a stronger degree word:

• Hän on hyvin sairas tänään. – He/She is very ill today.
• Hän on todella sairas tänään. – He/She is really sick today.
• Hän on tosi sairas tänään. – (colloquial) He/She is really sick today.
• Hän on erittäin sairas tänään. – He/She is extremely ill today. (a bit more formal)

The structure stays the same: hän on [degree word] sairas tänään.

What’s the negative form of this sentence?

To negate olla, Finnish uses a separate negative verb ei plus a special form of olla:

• Hän ei ole sairas tänään. – He/She is not sick today.

If you want to keep the “a little” idea but negate the severity:

• Hän ei ole kovin sairas tänään. – He/She is not very sick today.
• Hän ei ole enää sairas tänään. – He/She is no longer sick today.

How do you pronounce hän on vähän sairas tänään?

Rough guide with English-like hints:

• hän – “han” with a short a, like “hahn” but shorter; ä like a in cat.
• on – like on in English “on”, but short and clean.
• vähän – vä like va in van (with that same ä as in cat), hän as above.
• sairas – sai like English sigh, ras like rus in “Russia”, but a short a.
• tänään – tä like ta in tap (with ä), nään with a long ää (hold the ä a bit longer), ending with n.

Main stress is always on the first syllable of each word: HÄN on VÄ-hän SAI-ras TÄ-nään.

Could vähän here also mean “a little bit” in the sense of “somewhat, kind of,” not strictly “small quantity”?

Yes. In this context vähän is about degree, not about counting anything.

Just like in English:

• He’s a little sick today. = He’s somewhat / kind of sick.

Similarly, hän on vähän sairas tänään is about how sick he/she is, not how many sicknesses. It’s natural, mild, and often suggests it’s not very serious.