Breakdown of Jos joku kysyy minulta jotain tärkeää, yritän vastata mahdollisimman nopeasti.
minä
I
kysyä
to ask
tärkeä
important
jos
if
nopea
quick
yrittää
to try
vastata
to answer
joku
someone
jotain
something
mahdollinen
possible
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Questions & Answers about Jos joku kysyy minulta jotain tärkeää, yritän vastata mahdollisimman nopeasti.
What does jos mean and what role does it play in this sentence?
Jos means "if" in English. It introduces a conditional clause that sets a condition for the main clause. Here, it tells us that under the condition of someone asking something important, the speaker will try to answer quickly.
Why is minulta used instead of a nominative form like minä in the phrase "kysyy minulta jotain"?
In Finnish, when indicating the person from whom something is requested (as with asking), the person is expressed in the elative case. Minulta is the elative form of minä, and it shows that the query is being directed to or coming from the speaker. This construction is typical with verbs like kysyä.
What is the function of jotain tärkeää in the sentence, and why are both words in their partitive forms?
Jotain tärkeää translates to "something important." The word jotain is an indefinite pronoun and tärkeää is the adjective modifying it. In Finnish, indefinite or nonspecific objects are typically in the partitive case to indicate that the object is not complete or specifically defined, which is why both appear in the partitive.
How is mahdollisimman formed, and what does it add to the meaning of nopeasti?
Mahdollisimman is formed from the adjective mahdollinen (meaning "possible") by adding the superlative adverbial ending -isimman. It translates to "as... as possible." When combined with nopeasti (meaning "quickly"), it intensifies the adverb to mean "as quickly as possible."
What tense are the verbs kysyy and yritän, and how does that influence the overall meaning of the sentence?
Both kysyy (from kysyä, meaning "to ask") and yritän (from yrittää, meaning "to try") are in the present tense. In Finnish, the present tense is often used to describe habitual actions or general truths. In this sentence, it implies that whenever someone asks something important, the speaker always or usually tries to answer as quickly as possible.