Hän auttaa minua.

he/she

Breakdown of Hän auttaa minua.

• auttaa: to help
• me: us

Questions & Answers about Hän auttaa minua.

Is hän “he” or “she”? How do you know the gender?

Hän is gender‑neutral: it can mean he, she, or even they (singular, when you mean “that person”). The pronoun itself does not tell you the gender.

If you need to specify gender, you add extra words, for example:

• hän, se mies – he, that man
• hän, se nainen – she, that woman

But in normal Finnish, hän alone is enough whenever the context already makes it clear who you are talking about.

Why is it minua and not minut?

Minua is the partitive case of minä (I, me).
Minut is the accusative form.

The verb auttaa (to help) usually takes its “person” object in the partitive case in a simple sentence like this, so you say:

• Hän auttaa minua. – He/She helps me.

If you used minut, the meaning would change and you’d normally need some extra element, for example a direction or result:

• Hän auttoi minut ylös. – He/She helped me up.
• Hän auttoi minut perille. – He/She helped me (get) to the destination.

So:

• auttaa + partitive (minua) = helping in general / ongoing, not focusing on a final “completed” result
• auttaa + accusative (minut) = help to achieve a clear outcome (up, through, to somewhere, etc.), usually with another word showing that result

What exactly is minua grammatically?