Ystävä sanoi olleensa turhautunut töihin, ei minuun, ja olin siitä vieläkin helpottuneempi.

Olleensa is a compact way to express reported speech, roughly meaning “that he/she had been”.

More explicitly:

• Long version: Ystävä sanoi, että hän oli ollut turhautunut…
• Short version: Ystävä sanoi olleensa turhautunut…

Grammar-wise:

• The verb olla has a special reported-speech form:
  • olevansa = that he/she is
  • olleensa = that he/she had been
• The ending -nsa is a 3rd person possessive suffix that here encodes the subject (he/she/they).

So sanoi olleensa literally encodes “said (that) he/she had been” without needing että or a separate hän.

The he/she is hidden inside olleensa.

• olleen- = “having been”
• -sa / -nsa = 3rd person possessive suffix

This suffix is often used in reported speech to show who the “experiencer” is:

• sanoi olevansa väsynyt = he/she said (that) he/she is tired
• sanoi olleensa väsynyt = he/she said (that) he/she had been tired

Because of this suffix, Finnish doesn’t need to repeat hän. The subject is already clear from context (and from the suffix).

They belong to different verbs and roles:

• olleensa comes from olla = “to be”
• turhautunut comes from turhautua = “to become/be frustrated”

Together, olleensa turhautunut works like English “to have been frustrated”:

• olleensa = “to have been”
• turhautunut = “frustrated” (a participle used like an adjective)

So the structure is:

sanoi olleensa turhautunut
“(he/she) said (that) he/she had been frustrated”

Töihin is the illative plural of työ (“work, job”) and literally means “into work / to work”.

Here, turhautunut töihin means roughly “frustrated with (going to / dealing with) work”.

Some nuances:

• töihin (illative plural) = to work (as a general place/activity)
• työhön (illative singular) = to (one specific) job/work
• työstä (elative) = from/out of work; used more for “about work” in some expressions

In everyday Finnish, töihin is very common when talking about work as an activity/location:

• mennä töihin = to go to work
• turhautunut töihin = frustrated with work (as something you go to/do)

Because the verb turhautua governs the illative case (the “into/to” case) for the target of frustration.

Typical pattern:

• turhautua johonkin = to become frustrated with/at something
  
  • turhautunut töihin = frustrated with work
  • turhautunut minuun = frustrated with me

In the sentence, the second turhautunut is left out but understood:

• turhautunut töihin, ei minuun
  ≈ “frustrated with work, not with me”

So minuun (illative) is used to match töihin, because both are complements of turhautunut / turhautua.

This is ellipsis: leaving out repeated words when they’re obvious from context.

The full version would be:

• … turhautunut töihin, ei minuun.
  → fully explicit: … turhautunut töihin, (turhautunut) ei minuun.

But repeating turhautunut sounds heavy and unnatural, so Finnish simply omits it. The listener naturally understands that “frustrated” applies to both:

• “… frustrated with work, not (frustrated) with me.”

Siitä is an elative pronoun (“from that / about that”) and it refers to the whole content of what the friend said:

that the friend had been frustrated with work, not with me

So olin siitä helpottunut means:

• “I was relieved about that / because of that.”

The elative (-sta / -stä) + siitä is commonly used for “relieved/happy/sad about X”:

• olin siitä iloinen = I was happy about it
• olin siitä yllättynyt = I was surprised about it
• olin siitä helpottunut = I was relieved about it

Vieläkin adds extra emphasis, roughly “even still / even more”.

• vielä = still / yet / more
• vieläkin = still (even now), even more, with an intensifying -kin

In this sentence, olin siitä vieläkin helpottuneempi suggests:

• I was even more relieved (than before),
• or still more relieved on top of any earlier relief.

You could also say vielä helpottuneempi; vieläkin just sounds stronger and more emphatic.

Helpottuneempi is the comparative of helpottunut (“relieved”).

• base adjective: helpottunut = relieved
• comparative: helpottuneempi = more relieved

Nuance:

• olin helpottunut = I was relieved
• olin enemmän helpottunut = I was more relieved (periphrastic “more”)
• olin helpottuneempi = I was more relieved (single-word comparative)

Both enemmän helpottunut and helpottuneempi are possible; helpottuneempi is just the standard morphological comparative form and is very natural here.

Ystävä by itself literally means “a friend / the friend” (Finnish has no articles, so context decides).

• Ystävä sanoi… = “A friend said…” or “(The) friend said…”
• Ystäväni sanoi… = “My friend said…”

In real contexts, Ystävä sanoi… can often be understood as “a friend of mine said…”, but Ystäväni is the clear way to mark “my friend”.

So if the intended English is “My friend said…”, the most precise Finnish would be:

• Ystäväni sanoi olleensa turhautunut…

Yes, you can, and both are correct.

Two options:

1. With että-clause

   • Ystävä sanoi, että hän oli ollut turhautunut töihin.

2. With the compact participle form

   • Ystävä sanoi olleensa turhautunut töihin.

Differences:

• Meaning is essentially the same.
• The participial construction (sanoi olleensa) is more compact and feels slightly more written or formal, but it’s also common in speech.
• The että + finite verb version is simpler structurally and often easier for learners to produce.

Both are completely natural Finnish.

You can say either:

• olin siitä vieläkin helpottuneempi
• olin vieläkin helpottuneempi siitä

Both are grammatical and natural. Word order nuances:

• olin siitä vieläkin helpottuneempi
  
  • Slightly more focus on “about that” first: “About that, I was even more relieved.”
• olin vieläkin helpottuneempi siitä
  
  • Slightly more focus on the degree (even more relieved) before mentioning what it is about.

In everyday use, they’re very close in nuance, and both are fine.