Tässä on vettä, ole hyvä.

Here is some water, please.

Breakdown of Tässä on vettä, ole hyvä.

• olla: to be
• vesi: the water
• ole hyvä: please
• tässä: here (in this exact spot)

Questions & Answers about Tässä on vettä, ole hyvä.

What does tässä mean, and why does it end in -ssä?

Tässä usually means here in a sentence like this.

Grammatically, it comes from tämä (this) plus the inessive ending -ssa / -ssä, which often means in. So historically it is something like in this.

In modern Finnish, though, tässä is very commonly used as a simple here, especially when something is near the speaker or being handed to someone.

So in Tässä on vettä, tässä means something like:

• here
• right here
• here you have

Why is on there?

On is the 3rd person singular form of olla, which means to be.

So Tässä on vettä literally has the structure:

• tässä = here
• on = is
• vettä = water / some water

Finnish normally needs a verb in a full sentence, just like English does. So you cannot usually leave out on in a neutral sentence like this.

This pattern, [place] + on + [thing], is very common in Finnish for introducing or presenting something:

• Pöydällä on kirja. = There is a book on the table.
• Tässä on kahvia. = Here is some coffee.