Breakdown of En tiennyt, että kokki oli leiponut kakun ennen sulkemisaikaa.
olla
to be
ennen
before
en
not
että
that
kakku
the cake
kokki
the chef
tietää
to know
leipoa
to bake
sulkemisaika
the closing time
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Questions & Answers about En tiennyt, että kokki oli leiponut kakun ennen sulkemisaikaa.
Why is the personal pronoun omitted in en tiennyt?
In Finnish the verb form already indicates the person. en is the first-person singular negative, so you normally leave out minä. Saying Minä en tiennyt is correct but redundant in everyday speech.
Why is there a comma before että?
Finnish marks the boundary between a main clause and a subordinate (object) clause with a comma. Here että introduces a subordinate clause (“that …”) after en tiennyt, so you place a comma before it.
Why is että used after tiennyt?
The verb tietää (“to know”) takes an object clause introduced by että. In English you’d say “I didn’t know that …,” and in Finnish you need että to link the two parts.
Can you drop että in colloquial Finnish?
Yes. Informally people often say En tiennyt kokki oli leiponut kakun… without että, but in standard written Finnish you should include että.
What tense is oli leiponut, and why is it used here?
oli leiponut is the past perfect (pluperfect). It’s formed with the imperfect of olla (oli) + the past participle leiponut. You use it to show that the baking happened before another past moment (your not knowing).
Could you instead say kokki leipoi kakun? What’s the difference?
kokki leipoi kakun is the imperfect (“the cook baked a cake”). It simply states a past event. oli leiponut (pluperfect) emphasizes that the baking was completed even earlier relative to some past point.
Why is kakun in the accusative/genitive instead of the partitive kakkua?
With perfect and pluperfect verbs (completed actions) Finnish uses the accusative (which looks like the genitive) for a total object. So kakun marks “the whole cake” that was baked, not an indeterminate amount.
What case is sulkemisaikaa, and why?
sulkemisaikaa is the partitive singular of sulkemisaika (“closing time”). The preposition ennen (“before”) in time expressions takes the partitive, so ennen sulkemisaikaa = “before (the) closing time.”
Why aren’t there any articles (a/the) before kokki or kakku?
Finnish doesn’t use articles. Whether something is definite or indefinite is inferred from context rather than a separate word.