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Minun olisi pitänyt tehdä varmuuskopio jo viime viikolla, koska netti oli poikki koko illan.

Minun olisi pitänyt tehdä varmuuskopio jo viime viikolla, koska netti oli poikki koko illan.
I should have made a backup already last week, because the internet was down all evening.
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Questions & Answers about Minun olisi pitänyt tehdä varmuuskopio jo viime viikolla, koska netti oli poikki koko illan.

Why does Minun look like my (genitive) instead of I (minä)?

In Finnish, expressions of obligation often use a genitive “possessor” rather than a nominative subject.
So minun olisi pitänyt literally patterns like “for me / my (responsibility), it would have had to…”, i.e. “I should have…”.

You’ll see the same structure with other obligation words too:

  • Minun täytyy lähteä. = “I have to leave.”
  • Sinun piti soittaa. = “You were supposed to call.”
What exactly does olisi pitänyt mean? Why is it two words?

Olisi pitänyt is a common way to say “should have / ought to have (but didn’t)”.

  • olisi = conditional form of olla (“to be”) → “would be”
  • pitänyt = past participle of pitää (“to hold/keep”, but also “must/should” in this construction)

Together they form a conditional-perfect-style meaning: a past obligation that was not fulfilled.

Is this the same as minun piti or minun olisi pitänyt? What’s the difference?

They’re related but not the same:

  • Minun piti tehdä varmuuskopio. = “I was supposed to make a backup / I had to make a backup.”
    (Often a neutral past obligation; it doesn’t always explicitly highlight regret.)

  • Minun olisi pitänyt tehdä varmuuskopio. = “I should have made a backup.”
    (Stronger sense of hindsight/regret: it would have been the right thing, but it didn’t happen.)

Why is there tehdä after pitänyt? What form is it?

After this obligation construction (pitää-type), Finnish uses the A-infinitive (dictionary form) of the main verb:

  • pitänyt tehdä = “should have done”
  • pitänyt lähteä = “should have left”
  • pitänyt soittaa = “should have called”

So tehdä is just the basic infinitive “to do/make”.

Why is it tehdä varmuuskopio and not tehdä varmuuskopion?

Both can occur depending on nuance and dialect/style, but in everyday Finnish tehdä varmuuskopio is very common: the object is often left in a kind of “basic” form when the focus is on the action (“do a backup” as an activity).

If you say tehdä varmuuskopion, it can feel a bit more like a single, completed, specific backup (“make the/a backup (as a finished result)”). In real usage, many speakers still prefer tehdä varmuuskopio as a set phrase.

What does varmuuskopio literally mean, and is it a single word on purpose?

Yes, it’s a compound word:

  • varmuus = “certainty/safety”
  • kopio = “copy”

So varmuuskopio = “backup copy”. Finnish forms compounds very freely, so “backup” is naturally a single word.

What does jo viime viikolla mean, and where does jo usually go?

jo means “already” (or “as early as”).
jo viime viikolla means “already last week / as early as last week”, emphasizing that it should have been done earlier than it was.

Word order is flexible, but jo typically comes right before the word/phrase it emphasizes:

  • jo viime viikolla = already last week
  • viime viikolla jo can also occur, but it may sound more contrastive or stylistic.
Why is viime viikolla in that form (-lla)?

viikolla is the adessive case of viikko (“week”). With time expressions, the adessive commonly means “during/on (that time period)”:

  • viime viikolla = “last week”
  • tällä viikolla = “this week”
  • ensi viikolla = “next week”

So the -lla/-llä here is a standard way to mark “in/this/next/last week”.

What does koska do here, and does it always mean “because”?

Here koska introduces a reason clause: “because …”.
It can also mean “since” in the causal sense.

Separately, koska can sometimes be used in questions meaning “when” (Koska tulet? = “When are you coming?”), but in this sentence it’s clearly “because”.

What is netti? Is it informal?

netti is the very common colloquial word for “the internet / the net” in Finnish. It’s informal but widely used even in neutral speech.
More formal alternatives include internet or internetyhteys (“internet connection”), depending on context.

What does oli poikki literally mean, and why poikki?

poikki literally means “broken/snapped (in two)” or “cut off”. With services/connections it means “down / cut off / not working”.

So:

  • netti oli poikki = “the internet was down / the connection was cut off”

This is a very idiomatic Finnish way to talk about outages.

Why is it oli poikki and not something like a single verb “to be down”?

Finnish often expresses “down/out of order” states with olla + adjective/adverb-like word:

  • on rikki = “is broken”
  • on auki = “is open”
  • on kiinni = “is closed”
  • on poikki = “is cut off/down”

So oli poikki is the normal past-tense way to state that condition.

What does koko illan mean, and why is illan in the genitive?

koko means “the whole/entire”.
koko illan means “the whole evening”.

After koko, Finnish commonly uses a genitive-like form (illan) to express the full duration:

  • koko päivän = “all day”
  • koko viikon = “all week”
  • koko yön = “all night”

It’s a fixed, very common duration pattern.

Do I need to repeat minä/minun in the second clause, or is it okay that it’s missing?
It’s completely normal that it’s missing. The second clause koska netti oli poikki koko illan states the reason, and it doesn’t need to mention “I” again because the subject there is netti (“the internet”). Finnish avoids unnecessary repetition when the meaning is clear.