Breakdown of Poika haluaa urheilukauppaan, koska hän tarvitsee kengät kuntosalille.
Questions & Answers about Poika haluaa urheilukauppaan, koska hän tarvitsee kengät kuntosalille.
In English you have to say “The boy wants to go to the sports shop.”
In Finnish, the idea of going can be expressed just by:
- a verb like haluta (haluaa = wants)
- plus a directional case on the noun: urheilukauppaan (into the sports shop).
So Poika haluaa urheilukauppaan is understood as “The boy wants (to go) to the sports shop.”
You can also say the full form:
- Poika haluaa mennä urheilukauppaan.
Both are correct; the version without mennä is just shorter and very natural.
The ending -an here is the illative case, which usually means “into” / “to (the inside of)”.
- urheilukauppa = sports shop
- urheilukauppaan = into the sports shop / to the sports shop
So the case ending replaces a separate preposition like to or into in English.
It is a compound word plus a case ending:
- urheilu = sport
- kauppa = shop, store
→ urheilukauppa = sports shop - urheilukauppa + an (illative) → urheilukauppaan = into the sports shop
So you get meaning + direction in one long word.
Because they use different local cases with slightly different meanings:
urheilukauppaan
- illative (-an) = into the sports shop (movement to the inside of a place)
kuntosalille
- allative (-lle) = to the gym / for the gym (movement towards a place, onto a surface, or “for” a purpose)
Here:
- urheilukauppaan: destination where he wants to go.
- kuntosalille: the purpose or target context where the shoes will be used (shoes for the gym).
So Finnish uses different cases to express slightly different “to / for” ideas.
- kuntosali = gym (literally something like fitness hall)
- kuntosali + lle (allative) → kuntosalille
The allative -lle often means:
- onto something
- to / towards something
- for (in the sense of for some use or purpose)
In this sentence, kengät kuntosalille = shoes for the gym (more literally shoes to/for the gym).
Because kengät is the plural of kenkä (shoe), and in both English and Finnish, shoes are normally talked about in the plural:
- kenkä = a shoe
- kengät = shoes
So hän tarvitsee kengät = he/she needs (a pair of) shoes.
Yes:
- kengät = plural nominative
- kenkiä = plural partitive
With tarvita (to need), both are possible, but the nuance is different:
tarvitsee kengät
- A complete, specific set of shoes is needed (e.g. a pair of gym shoes).
- Feels more “total” and definite.
tarvitsee kenkiä
- Some shoes in general, an indefinite quantity (maybe several pairs, or just “some shoes” with no clear total).
In this sentence, kengät fits well because he needs a specific pair of gym shoes.
Koska is a subordinating conjunction meaning because.
- Poika haluaa urheilukauppaan = main clause (The boy wants to go to the sports shop)
- koska hän tarvitsee kengät kuntosalille = subordinate clause (because he needs shoes for the gym)
In Finnish, when a koska‑clause comes after the main clause, you usually put a comma before it:
- Poika haluaa urheilukauppaan, koska hän tarvitsee kengät kuntosalille.
If you put the koska‑clause first, the comma goes after that clause:
- Koska hän tarvitsee kengät kuntosalille, poika haluaa urheilukauppaan.
Hän refers back to poika (boy), so in context it means he.
Grammatically, though, hän is gender-neutral:
- hän can mean either he or she.
- Finnish pronouns do not mark gender.
English forces you to pick he in translation because poika is specifically a boy, but Finnish just uses hän for any person.
Yes, that is possible in Finnish:
- Poika haluaa urheilukauppaan, koska tarvitsee kengät kuntosalille.
The subject hän is then implied by the verb form and context.
However:
- Keeping hän (…koska hän tarvitsee…) is a bit clearer, especially for learners, and avoids any chance of confusion about who needs the shoes.
Finnish often omits possessive pronouns when the owner is obvious from context.
- hän tarvitsee kengät
→ literally: he/she needs shoes
→ normally understood as he needs (his) shoes or (a pair of shoes for himself).
You could say:
- hän tarvitsee hänen kenkänsä (or hänen kengät in colloquial speech),
but that typically emphasizes that the shoes belong to him in some specific sense, and can even sound a bit heavy or contrastive. In a simple sentence like this, kengät alone is completely normal.
Yes, that sentence is fully correct:
- Poika haluaa mennä urheilukauppaan, koska hän tarvitsee kengät kuntosalille.
= The boy wants to go to the sports shop because he needs shoes for the gym.
Difference:
- haluaa urheilukauppaan
- The illative case on urheilukauppaan already implies the idea of going.
- haluaa mennä urheilukauppaan
- Makes the going explicit with mennä (to go).
In everyday speech, both patterns are used; the original sentence is just slightly more compact.
Tarvitsee is the 3rd person singular present of the verb tarvita (to need).
Conjugation (present tense):
- minä tarvitsen – I need
- sinä tarvitset – you need
- hän tarvitsee – he/she needs
- me tarvitsemme – we need
- te tarvitsette – you (pl.) need
- he tarvitsevat – they need
So in the sentence:
- hän tarvitsee kengät kuntosalille
= he/she needs shoes for the gym.