Sen jälkeen kun olin lukenut romaanin, kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän.

After I had read the novel, I wrote a summary of it.

Breakdown of Sen jälkeen kun olin lukenut romaanin, kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän.

• olla: to be
• lukea: to read
• kirjoittaa: to write
• sen jälkeen kun: after
• romaani: the novel
• siitä: about it
• tiivistelmä: the summary

Questions & Answers about Sen jälkeen kun olin lukenut romaanin, kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän.

What is the literal meaning and structure of Sen jälkeen kun? Why not just kun?

Sen jälkeen kun is a fixed expression that literally breaks down as:

• sen = of that (genitive of se, “it/that”)
• jälkeen = after
• kun = when

So literally: “after that when…”, but idiomatically it just means “after (something happened)”.

Using only kun would just mean “when”, without the explicit “after”. Finnish uses sen jälkeen kun very often to clearly mark that one event happened after another, especially in written or more careful language.

Why is it sen and not se in Sen jälkeen?

The postposition jälkeen (“after”) requires the genitive case:

• se (basic form) → sen (genitive)

So:

• se jälkeen ❌ (incorrect)
• sen jälkeen ✅ (“after that”)

This is the same pattern you see with other postpositions:
pöydän alla (“under the table”), talon edessä (“in front of the house”), etc. The noun/pronoun before the postposition goes into the genitive.

What tense is olin lukenut, and why is it used here?

Olin lukenut is the pluperfect (past perfect) tense of lukea (“to read”):

• olin = I was / I had (past of olla)
• lukenut = (I had) read (past participle)

In this sentence, the reading happened before the writing, and both are in the past. Finnish uses pluperfect for the earlier past action:

• olin lukenut romaanin = I had read the novel
• kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän = I wrote a summary of it

So the pluperfect clearly shows the order of events: first reading, then writing.

Could you use another tense instead of olin lukenut, like luin romaanin?

You can say:

• Kun luin romaanin, kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän.

But that subtly changes the timing. Kun luin romaanin tends to suggest the actions are more overlapping or part of the same time frame (“when I was reading / when I read the novel”).

With olin lukenut, the meaning is clearly “after I had finished reading it”. So for a clear “first A, then B” in the past, olin lukenut is more precise.

Why is there a comma between romaanin and kirjoitin?

In Finnish, you put a comma between a subordinate clause and the main clause.

Here, Sen jälkeen kun olin lukenut romaanin is the subordinate kun-clause, and kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän is the main clause.

So the rule is:

• [Kun-/että-/jos-clause], [main clause].
  → Sen jälkeen kun olin lukenut romaanin, kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän.

Why is it romaanin and not romaani or romaania?

Romaanin is the object in the total object form (accusative/genitive with -n):

• luin romaanin = I read the novel (completely)
• luin romaania = I was reading (some) novel / I read the novel (incomplete / ongoing)

Here, the idea is that the novel was read entirely, and the action is completed. That’s why romaanin with -n is used, not the partitive romaania.

What case is siitä in, and why is it used instead of repeating romaani?

Siitä is the elative case of se (“it/that”):

• se → siitä = “from it / about it”

In context, siitä refers back to romaanin. So kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän means “I wrote a summary about it”, i.e. about the novel.

Finnish commonly avoids repeating nouns by using pronouns like siitä, siihen, siinä, etc., especially when the reference is clear from context.

Could you say kirjoitin romaanista tiivistelmän instead of kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän?

Yes:

• Kirjoitin romaanista tiivistelmän.
• Kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän.

Both are grammatically correct and natural.

Romaanista is more explicit (repeating the noun), while siitä uses a pronoun and sounds slightly more compact and typical once the noun has already been mentioned. In this particular sentence, using siitä after romaanin avoids repeating romaani.

What form is tiivistelmän, and why does it end with -n?

Tiivistelmän is the object in the total object form (accusative/genitive -n):

• kirjoitin tiivistelmän = I wrote a (whole) summary
• kirjoitin tiivistelmää = I was (in the process of) writing a summary (ongoing / incomplete)

Because the speaker completed the summary, the sentence uses the total object tiivistelmän with -n.

Why is kun used when the meaning is “after”, not just “when”?

Alone, kun usually means “when” (in time). But in the expression sen jälkeen kun, the “after” meaning comes mainly from jälkeen:

• jälkeen = after
• kun = when

So the structure is literally “after that, when (I had read the novel)…”. Together, they function as “after (I had read the novel)”. This is a very common and natural Finnish way to say “after doing X…”.

Could you phrase this more compactly in Finnish, for example using a participle?

Yes, Finnish often uses participle structures. For example:

• Luettuani romaanin, kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän.
  (literally: “Having read the novel, I wrote a summary of it.”)

Here luettuani = luettu (past passive participle) + -ni (my), meaning “after I had read” / “having read”.

Your original sentence with Sen jälkeen kun olin lukenut romaanin is slightly more explicit; the participle version is a bit more compact and somewhat more literary.

Is there any difference in nuance if the order of the clauses is reversed?

You can also say:

• Kirjoitin siitä tiivistelmän sen jälkeen kun olin lukenut romaanin.

This is still correct and means the same.

Differences:

• Original order (subordinate first) puts more emphasis on the condition / background (“after I had read…”).
• Reversed order puts more immediate focus on the main action (“I wrote a summary…”) and then explains when it happened.

Both word orders are natural; the choice is mostly about emphasis and style.