Breakdown of Jos bussi ei pysähdy pysäkillä, jään odottamaan seuraavaa bussia.
Questions & Answers about Jos bussi ei pysähdy pysäkillä, jään odottamaan seuraavaa bussia.
Because jos + present indicative commonly expresses a real/open condition (something that could genuinely happen): Jos bussi ei pysähdy… = If the bus doesn’t stop….
You’d use the conditional (pysähtyisi, jäisin) more for hypothetical/less likely situations or polite/softened statements, e.g. Jos bussi ei pysähtyisi, jäisin odottamaan… (If the bus didn’t stop (hypothetically), I would wait…).
Finnish uses a separate negative verb that carries person/number, plus a special main-verb form:
- ei = 3rd person singular negative verb (because bussi is singular)
- pysähdy = the main verb in the connegative form (used after en/et/ei/emme/ette/eivät)
So bussi ei pysähdy is literally “the bus does-not stop.”
pysähtyy is the normal 3rd person singular present form: “stops.”
After the negative verb (ei), Finnish uses the connegative form, which for this verb is pysähdy.
This also shows a common pattern where the form changes a bit compared to the affirmative (often tied to consonant gradation and verb-type rules).
pysäkillä is adessive (ending -lla/-llä) of pysäkki “stop”:
- pysäkki → pysäkillä = “at the stop”
With pysähtyä (“to stop”), Finnish typically marks the location of stopping with a location case like the adessive: pysähtyä pysäkillä = “stop at the stop.”
Grammatically you can form pysäkissä (inessive = “in the stop”), but it’s usually not the natural choice here.
A bus stop is conceptualized more as a point/place you are at rather than something you are inside, so pysäkillä is the idiomatic option.
Finnish normally uses a comma to separate a subordinate clause from the main clause.
Here the jos-clause comes first:
- Jos bussi ei pysähdy pysäkillä, (subordinate condition clause)
- jään odottamaan seuraavaa bussia. (main clause)
jään is 1st person singular present of jäädä (“to stay / remain / be left”).
In this sentence it means “I’ll stay (there) / I’ll end up (staying) …,” leading into an activity: jään odottamaan… = “I’ll stay to wait…”
odottamaan is the -maan/-mään form (often called the MA-infinitive illative). It commonly follows verbs like jäädä to describe what you stay/remain to do:
- jään odottamaan = “I stay/remain to wait” / “I end up waiting”
Using the basic infinitive odottaa after jäädä is not the normal structure in standard Finnish.
Because odottaa (“to wait for”) typically takes a partitive object, especially when the action is ongoing/unfinished or the result isn’t “completed”:
- odotan bussia = “I’m waiting for a bus”
So odottamaan seuraavaa bussia uses partitive: bussia.
In contrast, a total object like seuraavan bussin would be less natural here (and would imply a more “bounded/complete” kind of event than ordinary waiting).
Adjectives agree with the noun they modify in case and number. Since bussia is partitive singular, seuraava also becomes partitive singular:
- seuraava bussi (nominative)
- seuraavaa bussia (partitive)
You can omit the noun if it’s obvious from context:
- jään odottamaan seuraavaa = “I’ll wait for the next one.”
But repeating the noun (seuraavaa bussia) is very normal and clear, and often preferred in learner-friendly or formal contexts.
Yes, you can swap the clauses:
- Jos bussi ei pysähdy pysäkillä, jään odottamaan seuraavaa bussia.
- Jään odottamaan seuraavaa bussia, jos bussi ei pysähdy pysäkillä.
Both are correct; the difference is mainly emphasis/information flow. The comma still separates the jos-clause from the main clause.