olla järkeä

Finnish

Etymology

olla (“to be”) + järkeä (“sense”)

Verb

olla järkeä

1. (impersonal + inessive) to make sense (to be coherent or reasonable)

   Synonym: käydä järkeen

   Minusta tässä ei ole järkeä.

   The thing doesn’t make sense to me.

Conjugation

This impersonal verb is always used in the third person singular, but may be inflected in tense (such as present or past) and mood (such as indicative or conditional). The 'subject' of the verb is inflected in the adessive case. To see the conjugated forms of the verb, see olla.

Grammatically speaking järkeä (“sense”) is the subject in the Finnish expression, whereas in English the subject is the thing that makes sense (or doesn't). In Finnish the thing that makes sense is a predicative and is in inessive case. Consequently the verb olla (“to be”) is always in the third person.