Breakdown of Minusta on reilua, että myös nuoret saavat kertoa mielipiteensä vaaleista.
Questions & Answers about Minusta on reilua, että myös nuoret saavat kertoa mielipiteensä vaaleista.
Minusta is the elative case (-sta/-stä) of minä (I), literally “from me”.
In this kind of structure, minusta on X means:
- “I think (that) X is …”
- more literally: “In my view, it is X …”
So:
- Minusta on reilua, että…
≈ I think it’s fair that…
Using the elative -sta with a person is a common way in Finnish to express opinions, impressions, and feelings coming “from” someone:
- Minusta tuntuu, että… – I feel that…
- Minusta on hyvä, että… – I think it’s good that…
- Minusta hän on mukava. – I think he/she is nice.
Both mean “I think it’s fair” / “In my opinion it’s fair”, but they differ in formality and emphasis:
Minusta on reilua, että…
- Shorter, very common, neutral.
- Literally: From me it is fair that…
Minun mielestäni on reilua, että…
- Slightly longer and a bit more formal or emphatic.
- Literally: In my opinion it is fair that…
- minun mielestäni = in my opinion (genitive minun
- postposition mielestäni with possessive suffix)
In normal speech and writing, minusta on reilua is completely natural and often preferred because it’s more compact.
Reilua is the partitive singular form of the adjective reilu (fair).
In Finnish, in expressions like “On [adjective] että…” that give a general evaluation about a situation, the adjective is very often in the partitive:
- On hyvä, että… – It is good that…
- On tärkeää, että… – It is important that…
- On hienoa, että… – It is great that…
- On reilua, että… – It is fair that…
The partitive here signals a kind of abstract, non‑concrete quality being ascribed to the whole idea in the että‑clause.
Using nominative reilu (Minusta on reilu, että…) would sound ungrammatical or at least very odd to native speakers.
Että is a subordinating conjunction that corresponds to English “that” in sentences like:
- I think *that…*
- It is good *that…*
In Minusta on reilua, että myös nuoret saavat kertoa mielipiteensä vaaleista, the structure is:
- Minusta on reilua – main clause (I think it’s fair)
- että myös nuoret saavat kertoa mielipiteensä vaaleista – subordinate clause (that young people also get to express their opinion about the elections)
In standard written Finnish, a comma is always placed before että when it starts a subordinate clause, even though English normally does not put a comma before that in this kind of sentence.
Both myös nuoret and nuoret myös are grammatically possible, but the usual and most natural order here is “myös nuoret”.
myös nuoret puts the focus on nuoret (young people) as the added group:
- that *young people, too get to…*
- implies: previously some other group was mentioned or understood.
nuoret myös would more likely sound like:
- the young also (do something)
- In this particular sentence, nuoret myös saavat kertoa… is possible but feels less idiomatic; it can sound a bit more like “the young also get to…” without highlighting them as the “additional group” as clearly.
So myös + noun is the default pattern when you mean “also / too [this group]”:
- myös lapset – children too
- myös opettajat – teachers too
- myös nuoret – young people too
Saavat kertoa is:
- saavat – 3rd person plural present of saada
- kertoa – basic infinitive form of kertoa (to tell, to say, to express)
In this structure, saada + infinitive often means:
- “to be allowed to do something” / “to get to do something”
So:
- nuoret saavat kertoa
≈ young people are allowed to tell / get to express
If you used voida instead:
- nuoret voivat kertoa
would mean young people can (are able to) tell – focusing on ability or possibility, not permission.
Here, the idea is about having the right / permission / opportunity, so saada kertoa is the natural choice.
Kertoa is the 1st infinitive form of the verb, corresponding to English “to tell / to say”.
In the pattern saada + infinitive, the finite verb is saada (which is inflected for person and tense), and the main action verb stays in the infinitive:
- He saavat kertoa. – They are allowed to tell.
- He saivat kertoa. – They were allowed to tell.
- He saisivat kertoa. – They would be allowed to tell.
So kertoa itself doesn’t show person or tense, because that information is carried by saavat.
Mielipiteensä is built from:
- mielipide – opinion (noun)
- stem: mielipite-
- -nsä – 3rd person possessive suffix (his/her/its/their)
So:
- mielipide → mielipiteensä
literally: “his/her/their opinion” (depending on context)
In this sentence, it refers back to nuoret (young people), so:
- mielipiteensä = their (own) opinion
Important points:
- Finnish possessive suffixes mark ownership even when there is no separate “their” word:
- heidän mielipiteensä – their opinion (both pronoun and suffix present)
- mielipiteensä – their opinion (pronoun omitted but understood)
- Here the suffix is referring back to the subject nuoret, so it naturally means each young person’s own opinion.
Finnish often does not need a separate possessive pronoun when the owner is clear from context, because the possessive suffix already shows possession.
- heidän mielipiteensä – literally their their-opinion (redundant but correct and sometimes used for emphasis or clarity)
- mielipiteensä – their opinion (owner understood from context)
In this sentence:
- the logical owner of the opinion is nuoret (young people), the subject of the clause
- the suffix -nsä on mielipiteensä is enough to indicate “their (own)”
So heidän is not required here.
Vaaleista is:
- the elative plural of vaali (election),
- vaalit (plural) → vaaleista (from the elections / about the elections).
With verbs like kertoa (to tell / to say / to talk about), Finnish often uses the elative case (-sta/-stä) to express “about something”:
- kertoa jostakin – to tell about something
- puhua jostakin – to talk about something
- kirjoittaa jostakin – to write about something
So:
- kertoa mielipiteensä vaaleista
literally: to tell their opinion from the elections
idiomatically: to express their opinion about the elections.
That’s why vaaleista (elative) is used instead of, say, vaaleja (partitive) or vaaleista with some other case.
Finnish does not have articles (no “a/an/the”), so nuoret can mean:
- “young people in general” – generic group:
- It’s fair that young people also get to express their opinion…
- or “the young people” in some specific context, if that is clear.
In this sentence, without extra context, the most natural reading is generic:
- myös nuoret ≈ “young people too / young people also”
(as a group in society, not just a particular set of individuals)
Here, mielipiteensä is singular (each person’s opinion), but it refers collectively to all the young people.
If you explicitly wanted “their opinions” as a plural noun, you could say:
- mielipiteensä – their opinion(s) (context decides; still singular form with possessive suffix)
- mielipiteensä is often used even when, logically, each person has their own opinion, just like English often says “everyone has their own opinion” in the singular.
A fully explicit plural could be:
- heidän mielipiteensä – their opinions (again, number is somewhat abstract)
- Or more forcedly plural: heidän mielipiteensä asiasta ovat erilaisia – their opinions about the matter are different.
In practice, mielipiteensä in this sentence is perfectly natural and normally understood as “their own opinion(s)” without needing a separate plural form.