Lapset leikkivät puun ympärillä puistossa.

the child

Breakdown of Lapset leikkivät puun ympärillä puistossa.

• leikkiä: to play
• puisto: the park
• -ssa: in

Questions & Answers about Lapset leikkivät puun ympärillä puistossa.

Why is it Lapset and not Lapsit for children?

Finnish plural nominative is not always formed by just adding -t to the singular.

The singular lapsi has the stem lapse- in many forms.
Plural nominative = stem + -t:

• stem: lapse-
• • -t
• → lapset

So:

• lapsi = a/the child
• lapset = (the) children

Many -i nouns behave like this:

• kieli → kielet (language → languages)
• ovi → ovet (door → doors)

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Where is the in this sentence? Why doesn’t Finnish use an article in Lapset leikkivät puun ympärillä puistossa?

Finnish has no articles like the or a/an at all.
Definiteness is understood from context, word order, and sometimes other words, not from a specific article.

So Lapset leikkivät puun ympärillä puistossa can mean:

• The children are playing around the tree in the park.
• Children are playing around a tree in a park.

Which one is correct depends on what has been mentioned before and what both speakers know. If the speaker and listener both know which children, which tree, and which park, the English translation will naturally use the.

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How does leikkivät correspond to English are playing / play?