Questions & Answers about Tekijä on suomalainen.
Finnish has no articles (no equivalent of English a/an or the).
- Tekijä can mean a maker / an author / the maker / the author, depending on context.
- Suomalainen can mean a Finn / the Finn / Finnish.
The sentence Tekijä on suomalainen is interpreted from context as:
- The author is Finnish.
- The perpetrator is a Finn.
You do not add any extra word to mark definiteness or indefiniteness in Finnish.
The word tekijä literally means doer or maker (from the verb tehdä = to do, to make), and its exact meaning depends on context:
- In everyday speech: tekijä can be someone who did something.
- In copyright / book context: tekijä = author, creator.
- In crime news: tekijä = perpetrator.
Since you already know the meaning from context (e.g. “The author is Finnish”), Finnish doesn’t change the word; tekijä covers all these English possibilities.
In the sentence X on Y, where on is the verb olla (to be):
- X (the subject) is in the nominative case.
- Y (the complement / predicate) is also usually in the nominative when it is a noun or adjective describing identity or a permanent characteristic.
So:
- Tekijä = nominative singular (subject)
- suomalainen = nominative singular (predicative complement)
This pattern is the normal “X is Y” structure:
- Hän on opettaja. – He/She is a teacher.
- Auto on punainen. – The car is red.
- Tekijä on suomalainen. – The author is Finnish / a Finn.
Grammatically, suomalainen can function as both:
- As an adjective: suomalainen ruoka – Finnish food
- As a noun: Suomalainen on hiljainen. – A Finn is quiet.
In Tekijä on suomalainen, it is formally ambiguous, and Finnish doesn’t care about the difference the way English does. You can translate it as:
- The author is Finnish. (adjectival)
- The author is a Finn. (nominal)
Both translations are correct; context decides which is more natural in English.
In Finnish, nationalities and languages are not capitalized:
- suomi – Finnish (the language)
- suomalainen – Finnish / a Finn
- englanti – English (the language)
- englantilainen – English / an English person
They are only capitalized if they are part of a proper name, e.g.:
- Suomalainen (as a surname or the name of a newspaper).
So in your sentence, suomalainen is correctly written with a lowercase s.
Yes, on is the 3rd person singular form of the verb olla (to be).
Present tense of olla:
- minä olen – I am
- sinä olet – you are (singular)
- hän on – he/she is
- me olemme – we are
- te olette – you are (plural / formal)
- he ovat – they are
In Tekijä on suomalainen, the understood subject is hän (he/she) or se (it, for non-humans), so:
- Tekijä on suomalainen. – (He/She/The) author is Finnish.
You can say Suomalainen on tekijä, but the emphasis changes.
Tekijä on suomalainen.
- Focus: who/what the author is (the author turns out to be Finnish).
- Neutral way to answer: “What nationality is the author?”
Suomalainen on tekijä.
- Focus: which person is the author (out of a group, the Finnish one is the author).
- More like answering: “Which one is the author?” – The Finn is the author.
So word order is flexible, but it affects focus and information structure, not grammatical correctness.
The basic identity statement “X is Y” uses nominative for Y:
Tekijä on suomalainen.
Other forms after olla have specific meanings:
Essive (-na/-nä): suomalaisena
- Often means “as a Finn / in the role of a Finn”:
- Hän työskentelee suomalaisena oppaana. – He/She works as a Finnish guide.
Partitive (-a/-ä): suomalaista
- Used in somewhat different contexts, e.g. with adjectives of feeling, or when the state is incomplete, changing, etc.
- Hän on suomalaista alkuperää. – He/She is of Finnish origin.
For a simple, neutral statement of nationality/identity, the nominative suomalainen is the normal and correct choice.
The negative of olla uses a special negative verb ei, and the main verb goes into a special short form (ole for 3rd person singular).
- Tekijä on suomalainen. – The author is Finnish.
- Tekijä ei ole suomalainen. – The author is not Finnish.
Pattern:
- X ei ole Y. – X is not Y.
Examples:
- Hän ei ole opettaja. – He/She is not a teacher.
- Auto ei ole punainen. – The car is not red.
First make tekijä plural, and then use the plural form of olla:
- tekijä → tekijät (authors / makers / perpetrators)
- on → ovat (are)
You have two common options for the complement:
Adjectival / “some Finnish authors” feel:
- Tekijät ovat suomalaisia.
- Literally: The authors are Finnish (ones).
- suomalaisia is plural partitive, often used when talking about an unspecified group.
More like “the Finnish ones (specifically) are the authors”:
- Tekijät ovat suomalaiset.
- Both tekijät and suomalaiset are nominative plural; this tends to feel more definite / contrastive.
For a simple “The authors are Finnish” with no extra nuance, Tekijät ovat suomalaisia is usually the most natural.
Approximate pronunciation:
Tekijä → TEH-kee-ya
- t as in top
- e as in get
- k as in kit
- j like y in yes
- ä like a in cat
on → on (like on in “on top”, but shorter)
suomalainen → SWOH-mah-lie-nen (roughly)
- suo like swo in “swollen” but without the w strongly heard
- a as in father
- ai like eye
- nen: nehn, short vowels
Stress is always on the first syllable in Finnish:
- TE-ki-jä on SUO-ma-lai-nen.