Word
Poika, joka lukee kirjaa, on ahkera.
Meaning
The boy who is reading a book is hardworking.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Poika, joka lukee kirjaa, on ahkera.
Why are there commas around joka lukee kirjaa?
In Finnish, relative clauses starting with joka (who/which/that) must always be separated from the rest of the sentence by commas. This is a much stricter punctuation rule than in English!
Why do we use the basic form joka here instead of another form?
joka is the nominative singular form. It is singular because it refers to one boy (Poika), and it is in the nominative (basic) case because it acts as the subject of its own clause: the boy is the one doing the reading. If it were multiple boys, we would use the plural form jotka.
Why is kirjaa (book) in the partitive case?
The verb lukea (to read) takes a partitive object when an action is ongoing. Because the boy is currently in the middle of reading the book, we use the partitive form kirjaa instead of the basic form kirja.
Could we put the joka clause at the end, like Poika on ahkera, joka lukee kirjaa?
No, the relative pronoun joka needs to come right after the word it describes. Since it describes Poika, the relative clause has to interrupt the main sentence (Poika on ahkera) right after the first word.