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Questions & Answers about Joku odottaa ulkona.
Is joku used for both people and things?
No, joku is only used for people, meaning "somebody" or "someone". If you want to say "something" is waiting outside, you would use the word jokin.
Since this lesson is about accusative pronouns like minut, would I use minut to say "Somebody is waiting for me outside"?
Actually, no! Even though you are learning accusative pronouns, the verb odottaa (to wait) is a strict "partitive verb". This means the person being waited for must always be in the partitive case. You would say Joku odottaa minua ulkona, rather than using the accusative minut.
Why doesn't the Finnish sentence have a word for "is" like in "is waiting"?
Finnish doesn't have a separate continuous tense (like "is doing" or "are going") in the way English does. The single verb odottaa can translate to both "waits" and "is waiting" depending on what makes the most sense in English.
I have also seen the word ulos used for "outside". Why is it ulkona here?
Finnish uses different words for location versus movement. Ulkona is used when something is already in a location (staying outside). You use ulos when there is movement towards the outside, like "I am going outside" (Menen ulos). Since the person is just waiting there, we use ulkona.