Breakdown of Tiedätkö sinä, keneen hän rakastui?
sinä
you
hän
he / she
kuka
who
tietää
to know
rakastua
to fall in love with
Questions & Answers about Tiedätkö sinä, keneen hän rakastui?
Why does the sentence use keneen instead of the basic word for who (kuka)?
The verb rakastua (to fall in love) always requires its target to be in the illative case (the "into" case). In Finnish, you don't fall in love with someone, you fall in love into them! Keneen is the illative form of kuka.
How do we know rakastui means "fell in love" in the past tense?
The basic dictionary form of the verb is rakastua. To make it past tense for "he" or "she" (hän), the final -a drops and is replaced by the past tense marker -i. If it were happening right now, it would be hän rakastuu (he falls in love).
Why is there a comma in the middle of this short sentence?
Finnish punctuation rules are very strict about separating clauses. You always put a comma between a main clause (Tiedätkö sinä) and a sub-clause that starts with a question word like keneen.
Is the word sinä required here, since Tiedätkö already means "Do you know"?
No, it is optional. You can easily drop sinä and just say Tiedätkö, keneen hän rakastui? Adding the pronoun sinä just gives the sentence a slightly more conversational flow or puts a little extra emphasis on the "you".
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