Breakdown of Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet, aloitamme kilpailun.
Questions & Answers about Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet, aloitamme kilpailun.
Literally, sen jälkeen kun is:
- sen = of that / that’s (genitive of se “it/that”)
- jälkeen = after (a postposition)
- kun = a subordinating conjunction, here meaning when / after
So a very literal gloss is: “after that, when …”
In practice, sen jälkeen kun is a fixed, very common way to say “after (something happens)”:
- Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet, aloitamme kilpailun.
= After we have warmed up, we (will) start the competition.
You could also say kun olemme lämmitelleet on its own (see below), but sen jälkeen kun makes the “after” / sequence meaning explicit and a bit more formal or clear. It strongly emphasises afterwards, following that rather than just when / once.
Jälkeen is a postposition that always takes its complement in the genitive case.
- se (nominative) = it / that
- sen (genitive) = of it / of that
Because of jälkeen, you must use the genitive: sen jälkeen = after that.
This works the same with nouns:
- tunti → tunnin jälkeen = after an hour
- peli → pelin jälkeen = after the game
So sen jälkeen is literally after that, with sen in genitive because jälkeen requires it.
Yes, you can:
- Kun olemme lämmitelleet, aloitamme kilpailun.
This is perfectly correct and very natural. It usually means the same in context: When / once we have warmed up, we (will) start the competition – effectively “after we have warmed up”.
Nuance:
- Kun olemme lämmitelleet …
Focuses on the time when/once that condition is fulfilled. - Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet …
Explicitly highlights “afterwards, following that”, so it sounds a bit more explicit, slightly more formal/emphatic about the sequence.
Both are good; kun alone is extremely common in speech.
Olemme lämmitelleet is the present perfect in Finnish:
- olemme = we are / we have (1st person plural of olla, to be)
- lämmitelleet = active past participle, plural (from lämmitellä)
So olemme lämmitelleet ≈ we have warmed up.
Using the perfect here shows that the warming up is completed before the action in the main clause:
- Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet, aloitamme kilpailun.
After we have warmed up, we start the competition.
If you said:
- Kun lämmittelemme, aloitamme kilpailun.
it would sound like “While we are warming up, we start the competition”, i.e. overlapping in time, not a clear “first X, then Y”.
So the perfect olemme lämmitelleet marks the warm‑up as a finished action that comes before starting the competition.
Lämmitelleet is:
- verb: lämmitellä (to warm up, often about people/sports)
- stem: lämmitelle-
- ending: -et (part of the active past participle plural)
Form: active past participle, plural.
In the combination olemme lämmitelleet, it functions exactly like the English “have warmed up”:
- olemme lämmitelleet = we have warmed up
The active past participle can also be used like an adjective:
- lämmitelleet urheilijat = the athletes who have warmed up
So -lleet is just what you see in this particular verb’s participle form; it’s not a separate, general suffix with standalone meaning.
In Finnish, the personal ending on the verb normally shows the subject, so a separate pronoun is usually not needed:
- olemme = we are / we have (the -mme ending marks we)
So:
- Olemme lämmitelleet. = We have warmed up.
Adding the pronoun me is possible but gives emphasis:
- Me olemme lämmitelleet.
= We have warmed up (as opposed to somebody else).
In your sentence, olemme lämmitelleet is the standard, neutral way. The subject “we” is already encoded in the verb ending -mme.
Both relate to warming/heating, but they’re used differently:
lämmittää
- Basic meaning: to heat / to warm something (else)
- Typically used when you heat an object or a place:
- Lämmittää saunaa. = To heat the sauna.
- Lämmittää ruokaa. = To heat food.
lämmitellä
- Frequentative / iterative form: roughly “to warm up (for a while)”
- Very common in sports / physical context:
- Lämmitellä ennen peliä. = To warm up before the game.
In olemme lämmitelleet, the meaning is specifically “we have done our warm‑up exercises”, not simply “we have heated something.”
Kilpailu = competition (nominative).
In aloitamme kilpailun, kilpailun is the object of the verb aloitamme (we start).
For a singular, total object in this kind of sentence, Finnish uses a form that looks like the genitive (ending -n):
- aloitamme kilpailun = we start the competition
So:
- nominative: kilpailu (a/the competition)
- genitive / accusative (object form here): kilpailun (the competition as a whole, completed event)
This is just how Finnish marks a complete / bounded object in the affirmative: it uses the -n form.
This is about the object case: genitive/accusative vs. partitive.
Kilpailun (with -n) = total object: the whole thing, a bounded event.
- aloitamme kilpailun = we (will) start the competition (as a definite, complete event).
Kilpailua (partitive) would normally suggest an unbounded / ongoing action or “some competition” in a non‑completed sense. With aloittaa, this would feel odd, because starting something is naturally a discrete, bounded event.
So aloitamme kilpailun is the normal choice. Aloittaa + partitive can occur in other contexts (e.g. starting to do some ongoing activity), but with a specific kilpailu, you want the total object kilpailun.
Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet is a subordinate clause (time clause), and aloitamme kilpailun is the main clause.
In Finnish, the rule is:
- When a subordinate clause comes first, it is usually followed by a comma, and then the main clause:
- Kun olemme syöneet, menemme kotiin.
- Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet, aloitamme kilpailun.
If you reverse the order (main clause first), the comma often disappears in everyday writing:
- Aloitamme kilpailun sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet.
So the comma marks the boundary between the initial subordinate clause and the main clause.
Yes, that is absolutely correct and natural:
- Aloitamme kilpailun sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet.
Meaning is the same: We (will) start the competition after we have warmed up.
Differences:
- Subordinate clause first (your original):
- Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet, aloitamme kilpailun.
- Slightly more formal; puts more focus on the condition / the time.
- Main clause first:
- Aloitamme kilpailun sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet.
- Slightly more neutral; first says what will happen, then when.
Both are fine Finnish; word order mainly affects emphasis and style, not basic meaning.
Yes, that’s another natural way to say it:
- Lämmittelyn jälkeen aloitamme kilpailun.
- lämmittely = warm‑up (noun)
- lämmittelyn jälkeen = after the warm‑up
This version uses a noun + postposition:
- lämmittely (warm‑up) → lämmittelyn jälkeen (after the warm‑up)
Compared to:
- Sen jälkeen kun olemme lämmitelleet, aloitamme kilpailun.
- Focuses on the action (we have warmed up).
Both express essentially the same idea; the original sentence describes the completed action, while lämmittelyn jälkeen packs it into a noun phrase.
That sentence is fully in the past:
- olimme lämmitelleet = we had warmed up (past perfect)
- aloitimme kilpailun = we started the competition (past)
So:
- Sen jälkeen kun olimme lämmitelleet, aloitimme kilpailun.
= After we had warmed up, we started the competition.
Your original has:
- olemme lämmitelleet (present perfect)
- aloitamme (present, used for future)
So it refers to a future or planned sequence from the speaker’s viewpoint:
- After we have warmed up, we will start the competition.
Changing both verbs to past moves the whole sequence into already completed past events.