Etätyö on kätevä.

to be

Breakdown of Etätyö on kätevä.

• kätevä: convenient
• etätyö: the remote work

Questions & Answers about Etätyö on kätevä.

What exactly does etätyö mean, and why is it written as one word?

Etätyö is a compound noun made of:

• etä = remote, distance
• työ = work

So etätyö literally means remote work or distance work.

Finnish very often joins such elements into a single word, so instead of writing etä työ, it becomes one compound: etätyö. Writing it as two words would be incorrect.

What form of the verb is on, and why is it used here?

On is the 3rd person singular form of the verb olla (to be).

The full present tense paradigm of olla is:

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

In Etätyö on kätevä, the subject is etätyö (“remote work”), so we use the 3rd person singular form on, matching English “is.”

Why doesn’t the sentence have an article like “the” or “a” before etätyö?