Breakdown of Haastattelija lukee ensin työhakemuksen ja päättää, ketä hän haluaa palkata.
Questions & Answers about Haastattelija lukee ensin työhakemuksen ja päättää, ketä hän haluaa palkata.
Työhakemuksen is the genitive singular, and here it is used as a total object of the verb lukee (“reads”).
In Finnish, a completed, “whole” object in a normal affirmative sentence is usually in the genitive/accusative form:
- Luen kirjan. = I (will) read the whole book.
- Haastattelija lukee työhakemuksen. = The interviewer (will) read the job application (completely).
If the reading were ongoing or not about the whole thing, you’d see partitive instead:
- Luen kirjaa. = I am reading a/the book (not necessarily to the end).
So työhakemuksen marks that the interviewer reads the (whole) application, not just “some of it”.
Finnish has no articles (no direct equivalents of a/an or the), so työhakemuksen can correspond to either “a job application” or “the job application”, depending on context.
- If we know which application is meant (e.g. “this candidate’s application”), an English speaker will naturally translate it as “the job application”.
- If this is the first time it’s mentioned and it’s not specific, English might use “a job application”.
The case (genitive here) tells you the grammatical role (object), but definiteness (a/the) is inferred from context, not from form.
Ensin is an adverb meaning “first / first of all / before anything else”. It indicates the order of actions.
The most neutral position is before the verb it modifies:
- Haastattelija lukee ensin työhakemuksen... = First, the interviewer reads the application...
You can also put it at the very beginning for extra emphasis on the sequence:
- Ensin haastattelija lukee työhakemuksen ja sitten hän päättää...
= First the interviewer reads the application and then he/she decides...
You could put ensin later (e.g. lukee työhakemuksen ensin), but that is less typical and can sound a bit marked; the default is where it is in the original sentence.
Finnish very often uses the present tense to talk about future time, especially for planned or typical sequences of events. Context tells you it’s future.
So:
- Haastattelija lukee ensin työhakemuksen ja päättää...
literally: “The interviewer reads first the job application and decides...”,
but in natural English: “The interviewer will first read the job application and (then) decide...”
There is a Finnish future construction (tulee lukemaan, etc.), but it’s used less often than English will; the simple present usually does the job.
Ja (“and”) here just links two main predicates with the same subject:
- Haastattelija lukee... ja päättää...
One subject (haastattelija) doing two things. No comma is needed.
The comma before ketä marks the beginning of a subordinate clause (a content clause / indirect question) that is the object of päättää:
- päättää, ketä hän haluaa palkata
= “decides whom he/she wants to hire”
In Finnish, you normally put a comma before subordinate clauses introduced by things like että, koska, vaikka or question words like kuka, missä, milloin, ketä when they start such a clause.
Ketä hän haluaa palkata is an indirect question (a content clause). It functions as the object of päättää:
- Haastattelija ... päättää [ketä hän haluaa palkata].
= “The interviewer ... decides [whom he/she wants to hire].”
Inside that clause:
- hän is the subject.
- haluaa is the main verb (“wants”).
- palkata is the infinitive (“to hire”).
- ketä is the object of “wants to hire” → “whom”.
So structurally:
[päättää] + [indirect question: ketä hän haluaa palkata].
The base word is kuka (“who”). Its common singular forms are:
- kuka = who (nominative, subject)
- kenen = whose (genitive)
- ketä = partitive (and also very common as the general object form in questions)
- kenet = accusative (formal total object form, especially in written language)
Here we have ketä, which is:
- Morphologically the partitive of kuka.
- In actual usage, very widely used as “who(m)” in object position, especially in questions and indirect questions.
So:
- Ketä hän haluaa palkata? / Ketä hän haluaa palkata = “Whom does he want to hire / whom he wants to hire?”
In more formal standard Finnish, you could also see:
- Kenet hän haluaa palkata? / ... kenet hän haluaa palkata.
Both ketä and kenet are understood as “whom” here. Ketä is just more common in everyday language, including many teaching materials.
For most everyday purposes, they both mean “whom he/she wants to hire”, and both can be used in this kind of sentence.
Subtle points:
- Traditional, more formal grammar prefers kenet as the total object form.
- Ketä is originally the partitive, but in modern usage it is extremely common as a “default” object form of kuka.
Native speakers will often choose ketä without thinking about case theory. As a learner, it’s enough to know that both are understood as “whom” here, and ketä is very frequent in real-life language.
In Finnish, haluta + 1st infinitive is the normal way to say “want to do X”:
- Haluan syödä. = I want to eat.
- Haluaa palkata. = (He/She) wants to hire.
Here palkata is the 1st infinitive (dictionary form) of the verb palkata (“to hire, to employ”).
Saying haluaa palkkaa would mean “wants pay/salary” (palkka = salary, palkkaa = partitive of that noun), which is something completely different.
Palkata means “to hire, to employ someone”, and it is used from the employer’s side.
- Yritys palkkaa uuden työntekijän.
= The company hires a new employee.
A job seeker does not say “Haluan palkata työpaikan”. Instead they might say:
- Haluan saada työpaikan. = I want to get a job.
- Haluan, että minut palkataan. = I want to be hired.
So in the original sentence, hän haluaa palkata clearly describes what the interviewer / employer wants to do.
Unlike languages such as Spanish or Italian, Finnish does not normally drop the 3rd person singular pronoun in independent clauses or in most subordinate clauses.
So:
- Ketä hän haluaa palkata is normal.
- ✗ Ketä haluaa palkata (without hän) is usually felt to be incomplete or ambiguous in standard Finnish.
You can omit the subject in very specific contexts (e.g. in some coordinate clauses where it’s clearly the same subject), but this subordinate clause needs its own subject to be clear. Hence hän is included.
Yes, that word order is possible:
- Ensin haastattelija lukee työhakemuksen ja päättää...
This version puts slightly more emphasis on the sequence (“First, the interviewer reads...”), because ensin comes right at the beginning as a sentence-level adverb.
The original:
- Haastattelija lukee ensin työhakemuksen...
is more neutral, simply saying what the interviewer does and when, with ensin closely tied to lukee. The basic meaning (the order of actions) is the same in both versions.
Haastattelija is formed from the verb haastatella (“to interview”) plus the agent suffix -ja (or -jä after front vowels).
The suffix -ja/-jä often means “a person who does X”:
- opettaa (to teach) → opettaja (teacher)
- myydä (to sell) → myyjä (salesperson)
- haastatella (to interview) → haastattelija (interviewer)
So haastattelija literally is “interview-er”, the person who conducts the interview.
Yes, both are grammatically fine but they’re slightly different structures:
Haastattelija päättää palkata jonkun.
- Simple infinitive construction.
- “The interviewer decides to hire someone.”
- Focus: the decision to hire (in general).
Haastattelija päättää, ketä hän haluaa palkata.
- Uses an indirect question as the complement.
- “The interviewer decides whom he/she wants to hire.”
- Focus: the choice of person; which candidate is selected.
So the original sentence emphasizes choosing which candidate, not just the fact that a hiring decision is made.