Breakdown of Viisumi riippuu siitä, että sinulla on työpaikka.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
sinä
you
työpaikka
job
Questions & Answers about Viisumi riippuu siitä, että sinulla on työpaikka.
Why do we need the word siitä before että?
The verb riippua (to depend on) always requires its target to be in the elative case (-sta/-stä). Because you can't attach a case ending to a whole clause, Finnish uses the pronoun se (it) as a placeholder or bridge. We put se into the elative case (siitä) to satisfy the verb, and then explain what "it" is with the että clause.
Is it possible to drop siitä and just say "Viisumi riippuu, että..."?
No, that would sound very unnatural in Finnish. When a main verb has a strict case requirement (a rection), you must fulfill it. You have to give riippuu a word in the -sta/-stä form before moving on to the subordinate clause.
Why is there a comma between siitä and että?
In Finnish, a comma is strictly required to separate a main clause from a subordinate clause (like one starting with että). The word siitä belongs to the main clause (Viisumi riippuu siitä), so the comma must come right after it, before the conjunction.
Why is työpaikka in the basic nominative case here instead of the accusative or partitive?
This is a quick refresher on the Finnish "to have" construction (sinulla on). In these sentences, the thing you have is actually the grammatical subject of the sentence, so it takes the basic nominative case. It would only take the partitive if the sentence was negative (sinulla ei ole työpaikkaa) or if it was an uncountable mass noun.