Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä?

Who are you waiting for at the bus stop?

Breakdown of Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä?

• sinä: you
• odottaa: to wait for
• -llä: at
• pysäkki: the stop
• ketä: whom

Questions & Answers about Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä?

Why is it ketä and not kuka?

Kuka is the nominative form of “who” and is used when “who” is the subject of the sentence:

• Kuka odottaa? – Who is waiting?

In Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä?, “who” is not the subject; it is the object of the verb odottaa (“to wait for”).

The object form of kuka depends on case:

• nominative: kuka (subject)
• genitive: kenen
• accusative: kenet
• partitive: ketä

The verb odottaa always takes its object in the partitive case, so “who” must be in the partitive: ketä.

So the structure is literally:
Ketä (whom) sinä odotat (you are waiting for) pysäkillä (at the stop)?

Why does odottaa use the partitive (ketä) instead of something like kenet?

In Finnish, some verbs have a fixed “case requirement” for their objects. Odottaa is one of these verbs: it always takes its object in the partitive case, regardless of whether the waiting is finished or ongoing.

Examples:

• Odotan bussia. – I’m waiting for the bus. (bussia = partitive)
• Odotatko minua? – Are you waiting for me? (minua = partitive)
• Ketä odotat? – Who are you waiting for? (ketä = partitive)

Using kenet here (accusative) would sound ungrammatical to native speakers:
✗ Kenet sinä odotat pysäkillä? – wrong with odottaa.

So you simply memorize: odottaa + partitive object.

Is ketä only partitive, or is it used in other ways too?

Grammatically, ketä is the partitive singular of kuka. However, in spoken Finnish, ketä often appears even where strict written grammar would expect kuka:

• Spoken: Ketä siellä on?
• Standard written: Kuka siellä on? – Who is there?

In your sentence, though, ketä is not “colloquial”; it is exactly the correct partitive object form required by odottaa.

Do I need to say sinä, or can I just say Ketä odotat pysäkillä?

You can omit sinä:

• Ketä odotat pysäkillä? – perfectly natural and common.

In Finnish, the personal ending on the verb (-t in odotat) already shows that the subject is “you (singular)”, so the pronoun is often dropped.

Including sinä adds a bit of emphasis, often contrastive:

• Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä?
  Implies something like “And who are *you waiting for (at the stop)?*”
  (Maybe compared to someone else.)

So:

• Without sinä – neutral question.
• With sinä – slight emphasis on you.

Why is the word order Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä? and not Sinä odotat ketä pysäkillä?

In Finnish questions, the question word usually comes first:

• Ketä …? – Who …?
• Missä …? – Where …?
• Mitä …? – What …?

Then you get the subject + verb + the rest:

• Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä?

Putting the object question word later, like:

• ✗ Sinä odotat ketä pysäkillä?

is ungrammatical in standard Finnish. The neutral pattern is:

1. Question word (what/who/where/etc.)
2. Subject + verb (often just verb, subject can be omitted)
3. Other elements (place, time, adverbs…)

So you can have for example:

• Ketä odotat pysäkillä?
• Missä sinä odotat häntä? – Where are you waiting for him/her?

Could I also say Ketä sinä pysäkillä odotat? and is there any difference?

Yes, you can say:

• Ketä sinä pysäkillä odotat?

This is grammatically correct. The meaning is essentially the same, but the focus can shift slightly depending on intonation:

• Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä?
  More neutral; the phrase pysäkillä feels slightly like extra location information.

• Ketä sinä pysäkillä odotat?
  Can sound a bit more focused on the location: “Who is it that you are waiting for at the stop (as opposed to somewhere else)?”

In everyday speech, both word orders are possible; intonation carries a lot of the nuance.

What case is pysäkillä, and what does it literally mean?

Pysäkillä is in the adessive case (ending -lla/-llä).

The adessive case commonly expresses:

• location “on / at”
• possession (“at someone”)
• some other related functions

So:

• pysäkki – (a) stop (e.g. bus/tram stop), basic form
• pysäkillä – at the stop / on the stop

In English this is expressed with a preposition (“at”), but in Finnish it’s built into the case ending -llä on the noun.

What’s the difference between pysäkki, pysäkillä, pysäkille, and pysäkiltä?

All of these come from pysäkki (“stop”), but with different local cases:

• pysäkki – basic form (“a stop”)
• pysäkillä – adessive: at the stop / on the stop
• pysäkille – allative: to(wards) the stop (movement to)
• pysäkiltä – ablative: from the stop (movement away from)

Examples:

• Odotan sinua pysäkillä. – I’m waiting for you at the stop.
• Menen pysäkille. – I’m going to the stop.
• Lähden pysäkiltä. – I’m leaving from the stop.

How would I say this to several people, or in a more formal way?

For you (plural) or formal “you”, you use te and the 2nd person plural verb:

• Ketä te odotatte pysäkillä?
  – Who are you (pl./formal) waiting for at the stop?

Notes:

• In normal modern Finnish, te is used both for plural “you” and for formal singular “you” (polite form).
• Spoken language often drops te as well, if context is clear:
  • Ketä odotatte pysäkillä?

Can this sentence mean “Who is waiting for you at the stop?” as well?

No. The roles are clear from the verb ending and the cases:

• odota-t → you (sinä) is the subject.
• ketä (partitive) → object (“whom / who (as object)”).

So the only reading is:

• Ketä sinä odotat pysäkillä?
  → Who are you waiting for at the stop?

To say “Who is waiting for you at the stop?”, you would change the subject:

• Kuka odottaa sinua pysäkillä?
  – Who is waiting for you at the stop?

Here kuka is the subject, sinua (partitive of sinä) is the object.

Why is there no separate word for “for” in “waiting for” (odotat)?

English uses a preposition: “wait for someone”.

Finnish instead:

• encodes “for” directly in the verb’s government (its case requirement),
• and in the case of the object.

The verb odottaa already means “to wait for”, so you don’t need an extra word:

• odottaa bussia – to wait (for) the bus
• odottaa sinua – to wait (for) you
• ketä odotat? – who are you waiting (for)?

So you can think:

• odottaa + partitive object ≈ “wait for + object” in English.