Breakdown of Nämä nuoret, jotka auttavat isoäitiä, ovat fiksuja ja kilttejä.
olla
to be
ja
and
nämä
these
nuori
young
Questions & Answers about Nämä nuoret, jotka auttavat isoäitiä, ovat fiksuja ja kilttejä.
Why does the sentence use jotka instead of joka for "who"?
The relative pronoun joka ("who" or "which") has to match the number of the word it refers to. Here, it refers to nuoret (young people), which is plural. Therefore, we use the plural form jotka.
Is nuoret an adjective or a noun in this sentence?
It is acting as a noun here, meaning "young people". In Finnish, you can often take an adjective like nuori (young) and use it directly as a noun to mean a person with that quality. Nuoret is the basic plural form.
Why is the grandmother translated as isoäitiä (partitive) rather than just isoäiti?
The verb auttaa (to help) always requires the person or thing being helped to be in the partitive case. Because they are helping the grandmother, isoäiti takes the partitive ending -ä.
Why are the adjectives at the end (fiksuja and kilttejä) in the partitive plural instead of the basic plural (fiksut and kiltit)?
This is a special Finnish rule for describing things. When you describe a plural subject (like nuoret) using the verb "to be" (ovat), the adjectives that follow usually must be in the partitive plural.