Learn Hardcore Finnish: Yksi kollega sanoi, että haluaa vaihtaa ammattia ja edetä uudelle uralle. - One colleague said that he/she wants to change profession and advance to a new career.

yksi kollega = one specific colleague, one of the colleagues (but you’re not saying which). This is close to “one of my colleagues” or “a colleague of mine”.
kollega sanoi without yksi would sound more generic, almost like “a colleague said” in a context where it doesn’t really matter which one, or like you’re talking about colleagues as a group.

So yksi here helps to highlight that it was one particular individual among several, while keeping their identity vague.

Could I say eräs kollega instead of yksi kollega? What’s the difference?

Yes, you could say:

Eräs kollega sanoi, että…

eräs also means something like “a certain / some”, and it emphasizes that you know which colleague it is, but you are deliberately not naming them. It can have a slightly story-like or even gossipy feel, depending on context.

Nuance comparison:

yksi kollega – neutral “one (of my) colleagues”, quite common in everyday speech.
eräs kollega – more like “a certain colleague”; hints that you’re intentionally being a bit mysterious or discreet.

Both are grammatically correct.

Why is there a comma before että?

In Finnish, when you introduce a subordinate clause with conjunctions like että (that), koska (because), jos (if), etc., you generally put a comma before the conjunction.

So:

Yksi kollega sanoi, että…
main clause: Yksi kollega sanoi
että-clause: että haluaa vaihtaa ammattia ja edetä uudelle uralle

The rule here is: main clause, comma, conjunction, subordinate clause. This is different from English punctuation patterns, but very regular in Finnish.

What exactly does että do in this sentence?

että is a subordinating conjunction that works like English “that” in reported speech or in content clauses.

Structure:

Yksi kollega sanoi, että …
= “One colleague said that …”

The että-clause gives the content of what was said, thought, known, hoped, etc.:

hän sanoi, että haluaa… – he/she said that (he/she) wants…
tiedän, että se on vaikeaa – I know that it’s difficult.

So että tightly links the reported content to the verb sanoi (said).

Why is there no hän in että haluaa vaihtaa ammattia…? Who is the subject?

The subject is understood from context: it’s the same person as in yksi kollega sanoi.

Finnish often drops pronouns when they are clear from the verb form or from context. Here:

haluaa is 3rd person singular (he/she/it).
The closest logical 3rd person singular subject is yksi kollega.

So the full, explicit version would be:

Yksi kollega sanoi, että hän haluaa vaihtaa ammattia…

But since hän would be redundant, it’s completely natural to leave it out. This “subject dropping” is very common and perfectly correct.

Is että hän haluaa more correct than että haluaa?

Both are grammatically correct.

että hän haluaa – a bit more explicit and clear, useful if there could be ambiguity about who “wants”.
että haluaa – more compact and natural when the subject is obvious from context, as here.

Native speakers would often prefer the shorter että haluaa unless there’s a risk of confusion.

Why is the tense sanoi (past) but haluaa (present)? Why not halusi?

The combination past reporting verb + present in the that-clause is common in both Finnish and informal English:

Finnish: Yksi kollega sanoi, että haluaa…
English: One colleague said (that) he *wants…*

Using haluaa (present) suggests that the desire is still current or was current at the time of speaking, and we’re presenting it as his/her actual opinion, not distancing ourselves from it.

You could say:

Yksi kollega sanoi, että halusi vaihtaa ammattia…

This sounds more like describing a past state that might or might not be true now: “…said that he wanted to change profession (back then)”. The nuance is slightly more “backshifted” and less immediate.

So:

sanoi, että haluaa – said that they want (still relevant/true).
sanoi, että halusi – said that they wanted (more clearly in the past, status now unclear).

Why is ammattia in the partitive case instead of nominative ammatti or something else?

ammattia is the singular partitive of ammatti (profession, occupation).

The verb vaihtaa (to change, to switch) commonly takes its object in partitive when you mean “change X (into something else)” in a rather general, non-specified way:

vaihtaa ammattia – to change profession (in general, without specifying exactly to what)
vaihtaa työpaikkaa – to change job / workplace

Here, partitive signals:

A kind of ongoing or not sharply bounded change, not a single, perfectly completed, clearly delimited object.
The new profession is not specified in the sentence.

If you used ammatin (accusative-like form), it would sound like a more definite, total object and less idiomatic here. Native speakers overwhelmingly say vaihtaa ammattia.

Does ammattia here mean “a profession” or “his/her profession”?

Grammatically it’s just “profession” in the partitive singular, with no article and no possessive ending. But in context, it naturally means “(their) profession”.

Finnish doesn’t mark “a / the / his / her” explicitly unless needed:

haluaa vaihtaa ammattia – wants to change profession → understood as “wants to change his/her profession”.

If you really wanted to emphasize whose profession, you could say:

haluaa vaihtaa ammattiaan – literally wants to change his/her (own) profession.

But in everyday speech, ammattia without -an is enough; the possessor is obvious.

Why is it edetä uudelle uralle, and what case is uralle?

uralle is the allative case (ending -lle), which often means “onto, to, toward”.

ura – career, (career) path
ura + lle → uralle – onto/to a career (path)
uusi + lle → uudelle – to a new (one)

The verb edetä (to advance, to progress) often combines with ura using:

edetä uralla (adessive) – advance in one’s career
edetä uudelle uralle (allative) – advance/move onto a new career (path)

So edetä uudelle uralle literally = “to advance onto a new career (path)”. The allative nicely fits the idea of moving towards / onto something new.

Could we say edetä uuteen uraan instead of uudelle uralle?

That would sound very unnatural.

uuteen uraan uses the illative case (-Vn, -an here), typically into something (like going into a room, into a container, etc.).
With ura in the sense of career, Finnish uses ura + -lle (allative) or uralla (adessive) in idioms about career progress.

Collocations native speakers actually use:

edetä uralla – advance in one’s career.
edetä uudelle uralle – move onto a new career (path).

So uuteen uraan is grammatically a possible form, but not idiomatic with edetä in this meaning.

Why is uudelle before uralle, and why does it look like that?

uudelle uralle is an adjective + noun phrase, and in Finnish the adjective must agree in case and number with the noun:

base forms: uusi ura
allative: uude-lle ura-lle → uudelle uralle

So:

uusi (new) → uudelle (to a new)
ura (career) → uralle (to a career)

Word order adjective + noun (uudelle uralle) is normal, just like in English (“new career”). Putting the adjective after the noun (uralle uudelle) would be very marked and usually ungrammatical in standard Finnish.

How are the two verbs vaihtaa and edetä connected? Why only one että and one haluaa?

We have:

että haluaa vaihtaa ammattia ja edetä uudelle uralle

Inside the että-clause, there is one finite verb: haluaa. Then there are two infinitives linked with ja:

haluaa vaihtaa ammattia – (he/she) wants to change profession
(haluaa) edetä uudelle uralle – (he/she wants) to advance onto a new career

The second haluaa is understood but omitted to avoid repetition, just like in English:

…that he wants *to change profession and (to) move onto a new career.*

So grammatically it’s:

haluaa [vaihtaa ammattia] ja [edetä uudelle uralle]

Both infinitives depend on the same haluaa.

Could I say Yksi kollega sanoi haluavansa vaihtaa ammattia ja edetä uudelle uralle instead?

Yes, that is also correct and a bit more formal/literary.

sanoi, että haluaa… – finite että-clause, very common in everyday speech.
sanoi haluavansa… – uses the VA-participle (haluava-) with a possessive suffix (-nsa) to show who is doing the wanting.

Meaning-wise they’re essentially the same:

Yksi kollega sanoi, että haluaa vaihtaa ammattia…
Yksi kollega sanoi haluavansa vaihtaa ammattia…

The first sounds more spoken and straightforward, the second a bit more bookish or compact.

Is yksi kollega sanoi the only natural word order, or could I say Kollega yksi sanoi?

Kollega yksi sanoi is not natural here.

The normal patterns would be:

Yksi kollega sanoi, että… – very natural.
Kollega sanoi, että… – also possible, but sounds more generic (not emphasizing “one of several”).

The numeral yksi almost always comes before the noun it modifies in neutral word order:

yksi kollega, yksi opiskelija, yksi kaveri, etc.

Putting yksi after the noun would only occur in unusual, very marked constructions (poetic, humorous, or dialectal), not in standard prose like this.