Breakdown of Keskustelupiirissä jokainen saa etsiä itselleen uuden keskustelukumppanin.
Questions & Answers about Keskustelupiirissä jokainen saa etsiä itselleen uuden keskustelukumppanin.
Keskustelupiirissä can be broken down like this:
- keskustelu = discussion, conversation
- piiri = circle, group, club
- keskustelupiiri = discussion circle / discussion group
- -ssä = “in / inside” (inessive case)
So keskustelupiirissä literally means “in the discussion circle/group”.
Both relate to “everyone / all”, but they work differently:
- jokainen = each one, every individual person (grammatically singular)
- kaikki = all (often treated as plural: kaikki saavat…)
In jokainen saa etsiä, the idea is “each person, one by one, may look for…”. It emphasizes individuals rather than the group as a whole.
saa is the 3rd person singular of saada, which can mean:
- to get, receive:
- Hän saa lahjan. – He/She gets a present.
- to be allowed to:
- Hän saa mennä. – He/She is allowed to go.
When saada is followed by a bare infinitive (saa etsiä), it usually means “is allowed to / may / gets to (has the opportunity to)”.
So jokainen saa etsiä ≈ “everyone is allowed to look for / everyone gets to look for” a new partner. It implies permission or a given opportunity.
In Finnish, after verbs like:
- saada (to be allowed to, to get to),
- voida (to be able to),
- haluta (to want to),
- aikoa (to intend to),
you usually use the basic infinitive form:
- saan mennä – I’m allowed to go
- voin auttaa – I can help
- haluan syödä – I want to eat
So saa etsiä = “may look for / is allowed to look for”, and etsiä is just the standard infinitive used in this construction.
itselleen roughly means “for himself / herself / themselves” (referring back to the same person).
It’s built like this:
- itse = self
- -lle = to/for (allative case)
- -en = 3rd person possessive ending (his/her/their own)
So:
- minulle = to/for me
- sinulle = to/for you
- itselleen = to/for himself/herself/themselves (their own self)
In the sentence, etsiä itselleen means “to look for (a partner) for oneself”.
jokainen saa etsiä uuden keskustelukumppanin is grammatically fine and understandable.
However, itselleen makes it explicit that:
- each person is looking for a discussion partner for themselves,
not for someone else.
Without itselleen, the sentence still strongly suggests that meaning from context, but adding itselleen removes any possible ambiguity and feels natural in instructions for group activities.
Here, uuden keskustelukumppanin is the object of the verb etsiä (“to look for”).
- uusi keskustelukumppani = “a new discussion partner” (nominative, used for subjects)
- uuden keskustelukumppanin = that same phrase in genitive/accusative, used here as a total object
Finnish marks a “whole, definite” object often with the genitive singular (ending -n):
- Etsin uuden kumppanin. – I’m looking for a (one whole, new) partner.
- Etsin kumppania. – I’m (just) looking for a partner (more open‑ended, partitive).
Since the idea here is that each person finds one new partner as a complete object, uuden keskustelukumppanin is in the genitive/accusative form, not nominative.
keskustelukumppanin is:
- singular
- genitive (which also serves as the “total” accusative in this kind of sentence)
Breakdown:
- keskustelu = discussion
- kumppani = partner, companion
- keskustelukumppani = discussion partner
- keskustelukumppanin = of the discussion partner / (as object) the discussion partner
In this sentence, uuden keskustelukumppanin is a total object, so the noun ends in -n (genitive/accusative).
The choice between genitive (‑n) and partitive (‑a/‑ä) objects depends on meaning:
- Genitive/accusative object → a whole, bounded result or one complete item
- Partitive object → incomplete, ongoing, or “some (amount of)” something
Compare:
- Löysin uuden kumppanin. – I found a (whole) new partner.
- Etsin uutta kumppania. – I’m (still) looking for a new partner (ongoing, not completed).
In jokainen saa etsiä itselleen uuden keskustelukumppanin, the implied goal is that each person finds one entire new partner, so the total object (genitive/accusative) is used: uuden keskustelukumppanin.
Yes, that word order is also possible:
- Keskustelupiirissä jokainen saa etsiä itselleen uuden keskustelukumppanin.
- Keskustelupiirissä jokainen saa etsiä uuden keskustelukumppanin itselleen.
Both are grammatical. Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and both itselleen uuden keskustelukumppanin and uuden keskustelukumppanin itselleen sound natural.
Placing itselleen earlier can slightly emphasize the idea “for themselves”, but the difference is minor here.
Literally, piiri means “circle”, but in many contexts it means a group, circle of people, or club.
So keskustelupiiri is usually:
- a discussion group,
- a discussion circle (often people sitting in a circle),
- a regular meetup where people discuss a topic.
In this sentence, you can safely understand it as “in the discussion group/circle”, depending on the context you’ve been given.