Breakdown of Minä mietin, miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
Questions & Answers about Minä mietin, miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
Both mean to think, but they’re used differently:
miettiä = to think about something, to ponder, to wonder, to try to figure something out
- Emphasises the process of thinking.
- Works very naturally with question words:
- Minä mietin, miksi bussi on… = I’m wondering/trying to figure out why…
ajatella = to think, to have an opinion, or to think of/about someone
- More about opinion or a mental image:
- Ajattelen, että bussi on usein myöhässä. = I think (I’m of the opinion) that the bus is often late.
- Ajattelen sinua. = I’m thinking of you.
- More about opinion or a mental image:
So Minä mietin, miksi… is natural and idiomatic; Minä ajattelen, miksi… is strange in Finnish.
Yes, and that’s actually more typical in everyday Finnish.
- Finnish is a “pro‑drop” language: the subject pronoun (minä, sinä, etc.) can be left out because the verb ending (-n in mietin) already shows the person.
- Minä mietin… puts a bit more emphasis on I.
- Minä mietin… = I am the one who is wondering (not someone else).
- Mietin… = neutral “I’m wondering”.
Both are correct; Mietin, miksi… is the default neutral version.
In Finnish, you normally put a comma before a subordinate clause, including indirect questions.
- Minä mietin, miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
- Minä mietin = main clause
- miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä = subordinate clause (indirect question)
So the comma is required by standard Finnish punctuation rules, even though English would not usually have a comma here (I wonder why the bus is constantly late).
The difference is that one is an indirect question embedded inside a statement:
Miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä?
- Direct question. The whole sentence is a question.
Minä mietin, miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
- Statement + indirect question.
- The main sentence type is a statement (“I wonder”), and miksi… is just the content of that thought.
So when you have a “thinking/saying/knowing” verb (mietin, kysyn, tiedän, etc.), the following miksi/mitä/kuka… part becomes an embedded question, not a full question on its own.
No, that sounds ungrammatical or at least very non‑native.
- In Finnish you don’t stack että in front of a question word like miksi, missä, mitä, etc.
- You either say:
- Minä mietin, että bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
= I think / I ponder that the bus is constantly late. (statement content) - Minä mietin, miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
= I wonder why the bus is constantly late. (question content)
- Minä mietin, että bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
Use että for clauses that are statements, and use question words (miksi, mitä, kuka, …) when the content is a question. Not both together.
Myöhässä is a special case form used adverbially:
- It’s the inessive case (ending -ssa/-ssä) of myöhä (an old root meaning “late”).
- Literally it’s like “in lateness”, but in modern Finnish it just functions as a fixed expression with olla:
- olla myöhässä = to be late
- Bussi on myöhässä. = The bus is late.
Similar patterns:
- olla humalassa = to be drunk (literally “in drunkenness”)
- olla ajoissa = to be on time
So myöhässä isn’t a separate verb; it’s an inessive-form word used with olla to describe the state of being late.
Because in this sentence we need an adverb, not an adjective.
jatkuva = continuous, ongoing (adjective)
- jatkuva sade = continuous rain
jatkuvasti = continuously, constantly (adverb)
- Bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä. = The bus is constantly late.
We are describing how often/in what manner the bus is late (constantly), not describing the bus itself as a “continuous bus”, so the adverb jatkuvasti is correct.
You can say both, but there’s a nuance:
aina = always
- Often feels a bit absolute: every time, without exception (though in speech it can also be a mild exaggeration).
jatkuvasti = constantly, all the time
- Emphasises frequency/ongoing nature rather than strict “every single time”.
Examples:
- Bussi on aina myöhässä.
= The bus is always late. (sounds like: every time, or close to it) - Bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
= The bus is constantly late. (sounds like: it’s late again and again; it keeps happening)
Both are correct; choose based on the nuance you want.
Both are correct but they emphasise slightly different things:
Bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
- Describes the state: “the bus is (found) late, again and again”.
Bussi myöhästyy jatkuvasti.
- Uses the verb myöhästyä = to be late, to be delayed.
- Focuses more on the action/event of being late repeatedly.
In your original sentence with mietin, miksi…, either could work:
- Minä mietin, miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
- Minä mietin, miksi bussi myöhästyy jatkuvasti.
The first sounds a bit more like an everyday description of its usual state.
Here bussi is the subject of the verb on (“is”), so it stays in the nominative:
- Bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
- bussi = subject (nominative)
- on = verb
- jatkuvasti myöhässä = predicative/adverbial describing the subject
The partitive is used for things like:
- incomplete actions: luen kirjaa = I am reading (a) book
- uncountable/“some of” quantities: juon vettä = I drink (some) water
- certain verbs that require partitive objects or subjects
Here, we just have “The bus is late”, so nominative bussi is straightforward and correct.
This is simply how Finnish expresses this idea: olla myöhässä is the standard idiomatic phrase.
- English: The bus is late.
- Finnish: Bussi on myöhässä. (literally: “the bus is in lateness”)
You don’t normally say Bussi on myöhäinen to mean the bus arrives late—that would more likely be interpreted as “the bus is late (in the evening)” or “it is a late bus” as a scheduled time.
So for “arriving late / not on time”, always use olla myöhässä or myöhästyä.
In this sentence, the speaker is the one doing the thinking, so:
- mietin = I think / I ponder / I wonder
- present tense
- 1st person singular ending -n
If you change the subject, the verb changes:
- Sinä mietit, miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä. = You wonder why…
- Hän miettii, miksi… = He/She wonders why…
- Me mietimme, miksi… = We wonder why…
The ending on the verb always matches the subject, and you can still omit the pronoun:
- Mietit, miksi… = You wonder why…
- Miettii, miksi… is usually wrong/ambiguous unless context very strongly shows who the subject is; normally you’d keep hän there.
The given order is the most natural and neutral:
- Bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä.
You can move jatkuvasti, but it affects emphasis:
- Bussi on myöhässä jatkuvasti.
- Still understandable, but feels a bit marked/emphatic or slightly awkward.
- It can put some extra emphasis on jatkuvasti.
In standard, neutral Finnish, adverbs like jatkuvasti, usein, harvoin usually come before the main predicative/adverbial:
- Bussi on usein myöhässä.
- Juna on joskus myöhässä.
So the original order is the one you should normally choose.
No. Grammatically it is a statement that contains an indirect question:
- Main clause: Minä mietin = I wonder / I’m thinking
- Subordinate clause (indirect question): miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä = why the bus is constantly late
So:
- You end it with a full stop, not a question mark.
- The intonation in speech is that of a statement, not a question.
Only if you ask someone else about their thinking would the whole sentence become a question:
- Mietitkö, miksi bussi on jatkuvasti myöhässä? = Do you wonder why the bus is constantly late?