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Esimies ei halua irtisanoa ketään, vaan yrittää ensin neuvotella työajasta ja tehtävistä.

Esimies ei halua irtisanoa ketään, vaan yrittää ensin neuvotella työajasta ja tehtävistä.
The supervisor does not want to fire anyone but first tries to negotiate about the working hours and tasks.
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Questions & Answers about Esimies ei halua irtisanoa ketään, vaan yrittää ensin neuvotella työajasta ja tehtävistä.

What does esimies mean, and how would you usually translate it into English?

Esimies is a neutral, formal word for a person who is above you in the workplace hierarchy. Common translations are:

  • manager
  • supervisor
  • boss

Which English word you choose depends on the context, but manager or supervisor is usually safest.

Why is it ketään and not kukaan here?

Kukaan is the basic (nominative) form, but in this sentence it is the object of a negated verb, so it must be in the partitive:

  • kukaan → nominative (dictionary form)
  • ketään → partitive form of kukaan

In Finnish, when a verb is negated, its object usually appears in the partitive:

  • Hän tuntee jonkun. – He knows someone.
  • Hän ei tunne ketään. – He doesn’t know anyone.

So in ei halua irtisanoa ketään, the manager “doesn’t want to fire anyone” → ketään (partitive) is required.

What is the nuance of ketään vs ketäänkään in a sentence like this?

Both can appear in negative sentences, but:

  • ketään = “anyone” in a neutral way
  • ketäänkään = “anyone at all / not even anyone”, adds emphasis

Compare:

  • Esimies ei halua irtisanoa ketään.
    → “The manager does not want to fire anyone.” (neutral)

  • Esimies ei halua irtisanoa ketäänkään.
    → “The manager does not want to fire anyone at all / not even a single person.” (stronger emphasis)

Why is there a comma before vaan, and what is the difference between vaan and mutta here?

The structure is:

  • [negative clause], vaan [corrected / preferred alternative].

So:

  • Esimies ei halua irtisanoa ketään, vaan yrittää ensin…
    → “The manager does not want to fire anyone, but instead first tries to…”

In this usage:

  • vaan = “but rather / but instead”
  • mutta = more general “but”

Because the first part is negative (ei halua irtisanoa ketään), Finnish normally uses vaan for the contrastive “but rather” idea.

The comma divides:

  1. What is not wanted (firing people),
  2. From what is done instead (trying to negotiate).
Why are irtisanoa and neuvotella infinitives and not conjugated like irtisanoo or neuvottelee?

Two verbs in the sentence govern infinitives:

  1. haluta (“to want”)

    • Pattern: haluta + basic infinitive
    • ei halua irtisanoa = “does not want to fire”

  2. yrittää (“to try”)

    • Pattern: yrittää + basic infinitive
    • yrittää neuvotella = “tries to negotiate”

Conjugated forms like:

  • hän irtisanoo – “he/she fires”
  • hän neuvottelee – “he/she negotiates”

are finite verb forms used as the main verb of a clause. After haluta and yrittää, you normally use the infinitive, not another finite verb.

What exactly does irtisanoa mean? Is it like “to fire” in English?

Yes. Irtisanoa is a formal/neutral verb meaning:

  • “to dismiss”
  • “to terminate (someone’s) employment”
  • “to fire / lay off”

In this context, irtisanoa ketään = “to fire anyone / to lay anyone off”.
It’s a single word; you don’t separate it into parts in normal usage.

What does yrittää ensin neuvotella literally mean, and could the word order be yrittää neuvotella ensin?

Literally:

  • yrittää = “to try”
  • ensin = “first”
  • neuvotella = “to negotiate”

So yrittää ensin neuvotella = “tries first to negotiate” / “first tries to negotiate”.

About word order:

  • yrittää ensin neuvotella (as in the sentence)
  • yrittää neuvotella ensin

Both are grammatically fine and commonly used.
The difference is very small:

  • yrittää ensin neuvotella gently highlights “trying first” (sequence of actions).
  • yrittää neuvotella ensin can feel a bit more like “tries to negotiate first (before other options)”.

In everyday speech, both are acceptable and usually feel the same.

Why are työajasta and tehtävistä in the -sta / -stä form? What does that case do here?

työajasta and tehtävistä are in the elative case (often “from / out of / about”), marked by -sta / -stä.

The key is the verb neuvotella:

  • neuvotella jostakin = “to negotiate about something”

So:

  • työaika → työajasta
    → “about (the) working hours”
  • tehtävät → tehtävistä
    → “about (the) tasks/duties”

Together:
neuvotella työajasta ja tehtävistä = “to negotiate about working hours and (work) tasks”.

Finnish uses case endings instead of a preposition like “about”.

Why is it työajasta (singular) but tehtävistä (plural)? Could they both be plural?

As written:

  • työajasta – singular elative: “about (the) working time / working hours (as one overall concept)”
  • tehtävistä – plural elative: “about (the) tasks / duties (several items)”

This is natural because:

  • työaika is often treated as a general condition (your schedule / hours as a whole).
  • tehtävät are typically multiple individual tasks or responsibilities.

You could say työajoista ja tehtävistä (both plural) if you want to emphasize different kinds of working times (e.g., shifts, different schedules), but in a typical workplace context the singular työajasta is more common.

What is the function of ja in työajasta ja tehtävistä, and can anything in that phrase move elsewhere?

Ja is just the normal coordinating conjunction “and”:

  • työajasta ja tehtävistä = “about working hours and (work) tasks”

The whole phrase is the complement of neuvotella:

  • neuvotella [työajasta ja tehtävistä]

The natural place for this complement is immediately after neuvotella. You can move it for emphasis, but the default order is:

  • …yrittää ensin neuvotella työajasta ja tehtävistä.

Other orders (like splitting työajasta and tehtävistä or moving them far away) would sound odd or marked in standard Finnish.