Breakdown of Asiakas kiitti minua ääniviestistä, jota hän ei osannut avata.
minä
I
hän
he / she
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
kiittää
to thank
osata
to know how to
avata
to open
asiakas
the customer
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
ääniviesti
voice message
Questions & Answers about Asiakas kiitti minua ääniviestistä, jota hän ei osannut avata.
Why does the sentence use minua (partitive) and ääniviestistä (elative) with the verb kiitti?
The verb kiittää (to thank) always requires these specific cases: the person you are thanking must be in the partitive case (minua), and the thing you are thanking them for must be in the elative case, which ends in -sta/-stä (ääniviestistä).
Why is the relative pronoun jota in the partitive case here?
In Finnish, the object of a negative sentence must always be in the partitive case. Because the relative clause is negative (ei osannut avata - did not know how to open), the relative pronoun representing the message must be the partitive jota. If the sentence were positive, it would be the total object form jonka (jonka hän osasi avata).
Why use osannut instead of tiennyt for "did not know"?
Osata is used when you "know how" to do something, referring to a skill or ability. Tietää means to know a piece of factual information. Since the customer lacked the technical know-how to open the message, osata is the correct verb.
Since this lesson is about tense retention, shouldn't the second verb stay in the present tense? Why are both verbs (kiitti and ei osannut) in the past tense?
The "no sequence of tenses" rule you are learning applies to reported speech (usually sentences with an että clause reporting what someone originally said, like "He said that he is..."). This sentence doesn't contain reported speech; it just uses a relative clause (jota...) to describe a past state. Because the inability to open the message was a fact happening in the past alongside the thanking, both verbs simply take the past tense.
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