Hän ei itke pitkään, koska äiti tuo uuden jäätelön.

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Breakdown of Hän ei itke pitkään, koska äiti tuo uuden jäätelön.

• koska: because
• ei: not
• pitkä: long

Questions & Answers about Hän ei itke pitkään, koska äiti tuo uuden jäätelön.

What does hän mean? Is it he or she?

Hän can mean either he or she. Standard Finnish does not normally mark gender in the third-person singular pronoun.

So:

• hän = he/she
• context tells you which one is meant

In everyday spoken Finnish, people often use se for humans too, but in standard written Finnish, hän is the normal choice.

Why is the negative part ei itke instead of one word like doesn't cry?

Finnish makes negation with a separate negative verb plus the main verb.

Here:

• ei = the negative verb for he/she
• itke = the main verb itkeä in its special negative form

So hän ei itke literally works like he/she not cry.

A very important point: after ei, the main verb does not take the normal personal ending.

Compare:

• hän itkee = he/she cries
• hän ei itke = he/she does not cry

Not ei itkee.

What does pitkään mean, and why isn't it just pitkä?