Breakdown of Myöhemmin hän lähetti viestin ja teki vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön.
Questions & Answers about Myöhemmin hän lähetti viestin ja teki vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön.
Myöhemmin is an adverb meaning later. Putting it first sets the time frame and is a very natural, neutral word order in Finnish.
You could also say:
- Hän lähetti myöhemmin viestin ja teki vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön.
That is also correct. The difference is mostly in emphasis:
- Myöhemmin hän… slightly emphasizes when it happened.
- Hän myöhemmin… emphasizes he/she a bit more and only then mentions the time.
Finnish word order is relatively flexible, but putting time expressions like myöhemmin at the beginning is extremely common and sounds natural.
Hän is a gender‑neutral third person singular pronoun. It can mean he, she, or even they in the sense of a single person of unknown/irrelevant gender.
Finnish does not grammatically mark gender, so from hän alone you cannot know whether the person is male or female. You find out only from context, or you simply do not specify.
In spoken Finnish, people often use se (literally it) instead of hän, for example:
- Se lähetti viestin ja teki vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön.
In standard written Finnish, however, hän is the normal choice for a person.
Both verbs share the same subject hän:
- hän lähetti viestin
- (hän) teki vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön
Once the subject is clear, Finnish does not repeat it before every verb in the same clause, so:
- Myöhemmin hän lähetti viestin ja teki vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön.
is normal and correct.
You could repeat it:
- Myöhemmin hän lähetti viestin ja hän teki vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön.
This is grammatical but sounds more emphatic, as if you were stressing that it was that same person who did both things, or contrasting with someone else. In a neutral sentence, you usually say hän … ja teki … only once.
Yes. Lähetti (from lähettää, to send) and teki (from tehdä, to do/make) are both in the simple past tense (often called imperfect in Finnish grammar).
Roughly, they correspond to English sent and made:
- hän lähetti → he/she sent
- hän teki → he/she made / did
Finnish basically has one general past tense for this kind of context, and it covers both English simple past (he sent) and many uses of present perfect (he has sent), depending on context.
The base form of the noun is viesti (message). Viestin is its genitive singular form, and here it functions as a total object (often also called the accusative form for nouns).
Very simplified:
- Use the -n form (viestin) when the action is seen as complete and it affects the whole object:
- Hän lähetti viestin. – He/She sent the/a whole message.
- Use the partitive (viestiä) for ongoing, uncompleted, or indefinite amount:
- Hän lähetti viestiä. – He/She was messaging (sending message(s), not seen as a single complete item).
In this sentence, sending the message is seen as a complete event with one whole message, so viestin is used.
Vilpitön is an adjective meaning sincere.
Anteeksipyyntö is a noun meaning apology (literally request for forgiveness).
In the sentence, vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön is the object of teki (made). For a single, completed object, Finnish uses the same -n form that is also called the genitive singular:
- Nominative (dictionary form): vilpitön anteeksipyyntö – a sincere apology
- Genitive / total object: vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön – a/that sincere apology (as a completed object of an action)
Adjectives in Finnish agree with the noun in case and number, so:
- noun: anteeksipyyntö → anteeksipyynnön (genitive singular)
- adjective: vilpitön → vilpittömän (genitive singular to match)
So both words take -n because together they form one complete object of teki.
Anteeksipyyntö is a compound noun:
- anteeksi – the word used for sorry, excuse me, forgiveness
- pyyntö – request
Put together, anteeksipyyntö literally means request for forgiveness, i.e. apology.
Finnish very often builds new nouns by compounding:
- työ (work) + toveri (comrade) → työtoveri (co‑worker)
- puhelin (phone) + numero (number) → puhelinnumero (phone number)
So anteeksipyyntö is naturally written as one word. In the sentence, it appears in the genitive singular as anteeksipyynnön.
Finnish does not have articles like English a/an or the at all. There is simply no separate word for them.
Definiteness and indefiniteness are expressed by:
- Context
- Word order
- Sometimes pronouns or other modifiers
So viestin and vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön can be understood as:
- a message / a sincere apology
- the message / the sincere apology
depending on the wider context. The Finnish grammar does not force you to commit to a vs the; you just interpret it from the situation or the previous sentences.
Key points for this sentence:
- ä (as in hän, lähetti, vilpittömän)
- Like the a in cat or bad, but pure and short/long as written.
- ö (as in Myöhemmin, vilpittömän, anteeksipyynnön)
- Similar to German ö or the vowel in British English bird, but rounded and without an r sound.
- y (as in Myöhemmin, pyynnön)
- Like French u or German ü: lips rounded, tongue position like English ee.
Also watch consonant length:
- Double consonants are held longer:
- lähetti – tt is long
- pyynnön – nn is long
The length difference is meaningful in Finnish, so t vs tt or n vs nn can change the word.
Tehdä anteeksipyyntö (to make an apology) is correct and fits especially in more neutral or written style.
In everyday language, it is very common to express this more verb‑like, for example:
- Hän pyysi vilpittömästi anteeksi. – He/She asked forgiveness sincerely.
- Hän pyysi anteeksi vilpittömästi.
Here:
- pyytää anteeksi – to apologize / to say sorry
- vilpittömästi – sincerely (adverb from vilpitön)
So:
- teki vilpittömän anteeksipyynnön – a bit more noun‑based (made a sincere apology).
- pyysi vilpittömästi anteeksi – more verb‑based (apologized sincerely).
Both are correct; choice depends on style and nuance.