Breakdown of On kohtuutonta vaatia, että me pystyisimme työskentelemään ilman taukoja.
olla
to be
me
we
että
that (conjunction)
työskennellä
to work
vaatia
to claim (demand)
ilman
without
tauko
break
pystyä
to be able to, to manage
kohtuuton
unreasonable
Questions & Answers about On kohtuutonta vaatia, että me pystyisimme työskentelemään ilman taukoja.
Why is pystyisimme in the conditional mood here instead of the indicative?
This is the core of our current lesson. Verbs expressing a demand, request, or proposal, such as vaatia, trigger the conditional mood in the following että clause. Even though the English translation might say we should be able to or we are able to, Finnish uses the conditional here because working without breaks is a demanded condition, not a confirmed fact.
Why is kohtuutonta in the partitive case?
In Finnish, when you have an impersonal It is X to Y structure, like On kohtuutonta vaatia, the adjective describing the situation takes the partitive case. Because there is no specific grammatical subject doing the being, the adjective cannot take the basic nominative case.
Why use työskentelemään instead of the basic infinitive työskennellä?
The verb pystyä dictates the form of the verb that follows it. It always requires the third infinitive, or MA-infinitive, in the illative case, which ends in -maan or -mään. Therefore, the basic infinitive työskennellä changes to työskentelemään.
What dictates the case of the word taukoja?
The word ilman is a preposition that requires the noun following it to be in the partitive case. Because we are talking about plural breaks, the singular tauko becomes the plural partitive taukoja.
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