Breakdown of En tiedä, oliko vastaus väärä.
olla
to be
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
tietää
to know
vastaus
the answer
väärä
wrong
Questions & Answers about En tiedä, oliko vastaus väärä.
Why is there no word for "if" in this sentence?
In English, we use "if" for indirect yes/no questions (like "I don't know if the answer was wrong"). In Finnish, you don't use a separate word for this. Instead, you add the question ending -ko or -kö directly to the verb. Here, the past tense verb oli (was) becomes oliko (if it was). You should never use the word jos (if) for indirect questions!
Why does oliko come immediately after the comma?
In Finnish, the word that has the -ko or -kö clitic attached to it must always be the very first word in its clause. Because of this strict rule, oliko has to jump to the front of the indirect question, right after the comma.
Why are vastaus and väärä in their basic forms instead of the partitive case?
The second part of the sentence (oliko vastaus väärä) acts just like a simple "A is B" sentence. Because vastaus (the answer) is a single, complete thing rather than an uncountable mass, both the subject and the adjective describing it stay in the basic nominative form.
Just as a refresher, why doesn't tiedä have an -n at the end for "I"?
Because it follows the negative verb en (I do not). When making a negative sentence in Finnish, the main verb drops its personal ending. So while the positive is (minä) tiedän (I know), the negative form is always en tiedä (I don't know).
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