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Voit uusia lainan ja pidentää laina-aikaa, jos varausjono ei ole pitkä.

Voit uusia lainan ja pidentää laina-aikaa, jos varausjono ei ole pitkä.
You can renew the loan and extend the loan period if the reservation queue is not long.
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Questions & Answers about Voit uusia lainan ja pidentää laina-aikaa, jos varausjono ei ole pitkä.

Why does it start with Voit? What form is that?

Voit is the 2nd person singular present tense of voida (to be able to / can). So it literally sets up you can….

  • minä voin = I can
  • sinä voit = you (singular) can
  • hän voi = he/she/it can
    Finnish often omits the pronoun (sinä) because the verb ending already shows the person.
Why are there two verbs in a row: voit uusia and (voit) pidentää?

After voida, the next verb is typically in the 1st infinitive (the dictionary form): uusia, pidentää.
So the structure is: voida + infinitive = can + verb.
In Voit uusia … ja pidentää …, the second verb pidentää shares the same voit (it’s understood).

What does uusia mean here, and how is it used grammatically?

uusia means to renew (e.g., a loan, subscription, license). It’s the infinitive form, used after voit.
You’ll often see it with library items: uusia laina = renew a loan.

Why is it lainan (ending -n) instead of laina or lainaa?

lainan is the genitive (and in many contexts also functions as the “total object” form). Here, uusia treats laina as a complete, countable thing: renew the loan → uusia lainan.
In Finnish object marking depends on whether the action is seen as complete/whole (genitive/accusative) or incomplete/ongoing/uncountable (partitive). Renewing is typically viewed as a complete action, so lainan fits naturally.

Why does the second object look different: pidentää laina-aikaa (partitive -a/-ä)?

laina-aikaa is partitive singular of laina-aika (loan period / loan time). With verbs like pidentää (to extend/lengthen), Finnish commonly uses the partitive because you are increasing/adjusting a duration rather than treating it as a single “finished” object.
So:

  • uusia lainan = renew the (whole) loan
  • pidentää laina-aikaa = extend the loan period (a quantity/duration)
What is laina-aika and why is there a hyphen?

laina-aika is a compound noun: laina (loan) + aika (time) = loan time/period.
The hyphen is used because both parts end/start with a (laina + aika), and the hyphen improves readability. Without it, laina-aika could be harder to parse.

How does the jos clause work in Finnish?

jos means if and introduces a conditional clause: jos varausjono ei ole pitkä = if the reservation queue isn’t long.
The main clause comes first here, but Finnish allows both orders:

  • Voit …, jos …
  • Jos …, voit …
    Both are normal; punctuation (comma) is used between the clauses.
What is varausjono exactly?

varausjono is a compound word: varaus (reservation/hold) + jono (queue/line) → reservation queue / hold queue.
In library context, it means how many people are waiting for the item.

Why is it ei ole and not a single word for “is not”?

Finnish negation uses a negative auxiliary verb ei + the main verb in a special form.
For olla (to be) in the present:

  • (hän) on = (he/she) is
  • (hän) ei ole = (he/she) is not
    So ei carries person/number in many cases (e.g., en, et, ei, emme…), and the main verb changes accordingly.
Why is it pitkä and not something like pitkää?

pitkä is the basic nominative form used with olla in a normal descriptive sentence: jono on pitkä = the queue is long.
When negated, Finnish often still keeps the predicate adjective in the nominative here: jono ei ole pitkä. (In some contexts you may also see partitive in negative sentences, but with predicate adjectives this nominative pattern is very common and natural.)

Is the word order fixed? Could I move things around?

Finnish word order is fairly flexible, but changes emphasis. The neutral version here is: Voit uusia lainan ja pidentää laina-aikaa, jos varausjono ei ole pitkä.
You could also say: Jos varausjono ei ole pitkä, voit uusia lainan ja pidentää laina-aikaa.
That version foregrounds the condition (if the queue isn’t long…).

How would this change for polite you or for “you (plural)”?

Finnish uses the same verb form for polite you and plural you: voitte.

  • Voitte uusia lainan ja pidentää laina-aikaa, jos varausjono ei ole pitkä.
    This can mean either you (plural) can… or you (formal/polite) can…, depending on context.