Breakdown of Kuulumiset, joista puhuimme äskettäin, olivat yllättäviä.
olla
to be
puhua
to speak
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
yllättävä
surprising
äskettäin
recently
kuulumiset
the news
Questions & Answers about Kuulumiset, joista puhuimme äskettäin, olivat yllättäviä.
Why is kuulumiset translated as singular "news" when it has a plural ending?
In English, "news" is an uncountable singular word, but the Finnish word kuulumiset is grammatically plural. It comes from the verb kuulua (as in the greeting Mitä kuuluu?) and refers to "updates" or "things one has heard". Because it is plural in Finnish, the sentence must use the plural verb olivat instead of the singular oli.
Why does the relative pronoun use the elative plural form joista?
A relative pronoun gets its case from how it is used inside its own clause. The verb puhua (to talk) requires the elative case (-sta/-stä) when you are talking about something. Since the pronoun refers back to the plural noun kuulumiset, it becomes the plural elative form joista.
Why is the adjective yllättäviä in the partitive plural?
When describing a plural subject like kuulumiset using the verb olla (to be), the describing adjective usually takes the partitive plural (-ia/-iä). The word yllättävä means "surprising", and adding the plural partitive ending gives us yllättäviä to match the subject.
This lesson covers using the illative case for time expressions. Why isn't the time word äskettäin in the illative?
The word äskettäin (recently) is a fixed adverb that tells us when an event happened. The illative case of time is strictly used to express duration (how long something lasts), which is especially common in negative sentences like "I haven't seen you in a month". Since this sentence describes a specific past point in time rather than a continuous length of time, we just use a standard adverb.
Learn Kuulumiset, joista puhuimme äskettäin, olivat yllättäviä and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free