Breakdown of Romaanin päähenkilö on nuori opettaja, joka muuttaa Helsinkiin.
Questions & Answers about Romaanin päähenkilö on nuori opettaja, joka muuttaa Helsinkiin.
The -n on romaanin is the genitive singular ending. It usually corresponds to English of or to the possessive ’s.
- romaani = a novel
- romaanin = of the novel / the novel’s
So Romaanin päähenkilö literally means the novel’s main character or the main character of the novel.
This structure is very common in Finnish:
- kirjan kansi = the book’s cover / the cover of the book
- elokuvan ohjaaja = the film’s director / the director of the film
The possessed noun (päähenkilö) stays in its own case (here nominative), and the owner (romaani) goes into the genitive romaanin.
Päähenkilö is a compound of:
- pää = head, main, principal
- henkilö = person
Together: päähenkilö = literally main person, i.e. main character / protagonist.
In Finnish compounds:
- The last part is the core meaning (here: henkilö, a person).
- The earlier part(s) specify or narrow it (here: pää, making it the main/principal person).
- It’s written as one word in standard Finnish.
More examples:
- pääkaupunki = main city → capital (pää + kaupunki)
- työpaikka = work + place → workplace, job
- opettajahuone = teacher + room → staff room
So Romaanin päähenkilö is structurally “the novel’s main-person”.
This is a classic X is Y sentence:
- Romaanin päähenkilö = subject (who/what is something?)
- on = is
- nuori opettaja = predicative (what the subject is)
In Finnish, in a simple present-tense “being” sentence like X on Y, both X and Y are usually in the nominative:
- Romaanin päähenkilö on nuori opettaja.
- Isäni on lääkäri. = My father is a doctor.
- Tämä kaupunki on pieni. = This city is small.
So:
- päähenkilö (main character) and
- nuori opettaja (young teacher)
are both in nominative because they are equated: the novel’s main character = a young teacher.
Finnish has no articles (a, an, the), so the bare form nuori opettaja can mean:
- a young teacher (indefinite)
- the young teacher (definite)
Which one is correct depends on context, not grammar.
In this sentence, the definite thing is already identified:
- Romaanin päähenkilö = a particular, definite main character.
We are telling what that definite person is by type → a young teacher fits best in English.
If the context had already introduced a specific teacher and you were just describing them, you might translate nuori opettaja as the young teacher. Finnish leaves this to context; English forces you to choose an article in translation.
Yes: in standard written Finnish you normally put a comma before a subordinate clause, including relative clauses introduced by joka.
- Romaanin päähenkilö on nuori opettaja, joka muuttaa Helsinkiin.
The part joka muuttaa Helsinkiin is a subordinate (relative) clause modifying nuori opettaja. Finnish spelling rules require a comma before such clauses, even when in English you often don’t use a comma:
- the young teacher who moves to Helsinki (no comma in English)
- nuori opettaja, joka muuttaa Helsinkiin (comma in Finnish)
So the comma is not marking “non‑essential” vs “essential” like in English; it mostly just marks the start of the subordinate clause.
Joka is a relative pronoun, roughly like English who / that.
In this sentence:
- It refers back to nuori opettaja (young teacher).
- It is the subject of the relative clause.
So:
- nuori opettaja, joka muuttaa Helsinkiin
= the young teacher who moves to Helsinki
Grammatically:
- joka is in the nominative (subject form).
- It agrees in number with its antecedent (singular here).
- In other cases it changes form:
- jonka (genitive: whose, of whom/which)
- jota (partitive)
- jossa (inessive: in which)
- etc.
Here, because “who” is simply doing the action “moves”, we use the nominative joka.
The relative pronoun joka itself functions as the subject, so you do not add another subject pronoun like hän.
- Correct: joka muuttaa Helsinkiin = who moves to Helsinki
- Incorrect: joka hän muuttaa Helsinkiin
That would be like saying in English: “who he moves to Helsinki”, which is ungrammatical. The subject is already expressed by joka, so Finnish does not repeat it.
In dictionaries you see the basic verb form (1st infinitive), for this verb: muuttaa.
For type 1 verbs like muuttaa, the 3rd person singular present looks identical to that infinitive:
- infinitive: muuttaa = to move / to change
- 3rd person singular: hän muuttaa = he/she moves / changes
Conjugation (present):
- minä muutan
- sinä muutat
- hän muuttaa
- me muutamme
- te muutatte
- he muuttavat
So here, muuttaa is a finite verb: “(who) moves”. We know this because:
- it appears after joka (a subject),
- it has no auxiliary/future marker, and
- this is the normal finite form: hän muuttaa → “he/she moves”.
The fact that it looks like the infinitive is just a coincidence of this verb type. Context tells us it’s conjugated.
Muuttaa has two main meanings:
To move, change residence (often intransitive)
- muuttaa Helsinkiin = move to Helsinki
- He muuttavat uuteen asuntoon. = They are moving to a new flat.
To change (something) (transitive)
- muuttaa suunnitelmaa = to change the plan
- muuttaa mieltään = to change one’s mind
In this sentence:
- joka muuttaa Helsinkiin
clearly means who moves to Helsinki (change of residence), because there is a destination in an “into” case (Helsinkiin). There is no direct object that could be “changed”.
Helsinkiin is the illative case, which typically expresses movement into something or to a place (thought of as an area you go into).
For place names using the internal series:
- Helsinki = Helsinki (basic form)
- Helsinkiin = into/to Helsinki (illative, direction towards)
- Helsingissä = in Helsinki (inessive, location inside)
- Helsingistä = from (out of) Helsinki (elative, from inside)
So:
- muuttaa Helsinkiin = move to Helsinki (i.e. into the city as a place of residence).
The basic form is Helsinki, ending in -i. For many -i words, the illative is formed with:
- stem + -in, and the i lengthens to ii.
So:
- Helsinki → stem Helsinki-
- -in → Helsinkiin
You see the same pattern in other -i place names and words of the same type:
- järvi (lake) → järveen (into the lake) – different type
- Ruotsi (Sweden) → Ruotsiin (to Sweden)
- Pariisi (Paris) → Pariisiin (to Paris)
The important thing for a learner: -iin here is the visible sign of the illative (“into/to Helsinki”).
Finnish has two main sets of local cases:
- Internal (inside something): -ssa/-ssä, -sta/-stä, -Vn / -in (= illative forms like Helsinkiin)
- External (on/at a surface): -lla/-llä, -lta/-ltä, -lle
For cities and countries, Finnish normally uses the internal set:
- Helsingissä = in Helsinki
- Helsingistä = from Helsinki
- Helsinkiin = to Helsinki
So muuttaa Helsinkiin is the standard way to say move to Helsinki.
The external set (-lle, etc.) is more for surfaces, points, or recipients:
- pöydälle = onto the table
- ystävälle = to a friend (as a recipient)
You would not say *muuttaa Helsinkille in standard Finnish.
Yes. In Finnish, an attributive adjective normally agrees with the noun in:
- case
- number
In the basic nominative singular:
- nuori opettaja = a young teacher
If you change the case or number, they change together:
- nuoren opettajan (genitive singular) = of the young teacher
- nuorta opettajaa (partitive singular) = (of) a young teacher
- nuoret opettajat (nominative plural) = young teachers
- nuorille opettajille (allative plural) = to young teachers
In the sentence:
- nuori and opettaja are both nominative singular, matching the role of the phrase as the predicative: nuori opettaja.
It modifies nuori opettaja.
Structure:
- Romaanin päähenkilö = the novel’s main character
- on = is
- nuori opettaja = a young teacher
- , joka muuttaa Helsinkiin = who moves to Helsinki
So the person who moves to Helsinki is the young teacher, i.e. the main character.
If you wanted it to clearly modify Romaanin päähenkilö instead, you’d either rely on the same structure (context does that anyway), or rephrase. But as it stands, the natural reading is:
The main character of the novel is a young teacher who moves to Helsinki.
You can change the word order:
- Nuori opettaja on romaanin päähenkilö, joka muuttaa Helsinkiin.
Grammatically, this still means the same thing: the young teacher is the main character of the novel, who moves to Helsinki.
However, word order in Finnish is used for emphasis / information structure:
Original: Romaanin päähenkilö on nuori opettaja, joka muuttaa Helsinkiin.
→ starts from “the novel’s main character” (topic: the book / its structure).Alternative: Nuori opettaja on romaanin päähenkilö, joka muuttaa Helsinkiin.
→ starts from “a young teacher” (topic: this person), then identifies them as the main character.
Both are correct; the difference is about what you introduce first / focus on, not basic grammar.