Breakdown of Suosittu e-kirja on varattu, ja varausjono liikkuu hitaasti.
Questions & Answers about Suosittu e-kirja on varattu, ja varausjono liikkuu hitaasti.
Finnish doesn’t have articles like a/an or the. Whether the noun is definite or indefinite is usually understood from context.
- Suosittu e-kirja can mean a popular e-book or the popular e-book, depending on the situation (e.g., talking about a specific title in a library system makes it feel more like the).
Yes. Finnish adjectives agree with the noun in number and case.
- Here both words are in the nominative singular: suosittu e-kirja. If the case changes, both change:
- suositun e-kirjan (genitive: of a/the popular e-book)
- suosittua e-kirjaa (partitive: often used for an object in certain contexts)
E-kirja is short for elektroninen kirja (electronic book). The e- prefix is productive in Finnish (like English e-mail, e-commerce). The hyphen is common with letter/prefix abbreviations to keep the word readable and avoid odd spelling clashes:
- e-kirja, e-lasku, e-urheilu, etc. In plural you might see: e-kirjat.
It’s olla (on = is/has) + a past participle-like form (varattu from varata, to reserve). In practice, it often describes a result state:
- e-kirja on varattu = the e-book is reserved (i.e., currently not available). Depending on context it can also be interpreted as has been reserved, but the key idea is the present situation: it’s already reserved.
Finnish often leaves the agent unspecified when it’s irrelevant or unknown. On varattu conveniently avoids saying who did it. If you wanted to explicitly say “someone reserved it,” you might rephrase:
- Joku varasi e-kirjan. = Someone reserved the e-book. But in library-style messages, the “by whom” usually doesn’t matter, so the impersonal on varattu is natural.
Finnish commonly builds compounds. Varausjono is:
- varaus = reservation
- jono = queue/line So varausjono = reservation queue / hold queue. You’ll see lots of similar compounds in Finnish, especially in administrative or system messages.
In Finnish, a comma is normally used to separate two independent clauses (each with its own verb), even if they’re joined by ja:
- Suosittu e-kirja on varattu, ja varausjono liikkuu hitaasti. Both parts are full clauses: 1) e-kirja on varattu 2) varausjono liikkuu hitaasti So the comma is standard.
Liikkua means to move, but it’s also used metaphorically for processes that “advance”:
- jono liikkuu = the line is moving/advancing (people are being served; the queue progresses). So varausjono liikkuu hitaasti means the reservation queue is progressing slowly (turns are released slowly).
Hitaasti is an adverb meaning slowly. Many Finnish adverbs are formed with -sti (similar in function to English -ly):
- hidas (slow, adjective) → hitaasti (slowly, adverb) Placement is fairly flexible, but the neutral choice is after the verb:
- jono liikkuu hitaasti You could also emphasize it by moving it earlier:
- Varausjono liikkuu hitaasti. (neutral)
- Hitaasti varausjono liikkuu. (more literary/emphatic)
Yes, you can drop it if “popular” isn’t important:
- E-kirja on varattu, ja varausjono liikkuu hitaasti. Word order changes usually shift emphasis rather than core meaning:
- Suosittu e-kirja on varattu... (focus on the e-book being popular)
- E-kirja on varattu, ja varausjono liikkuu hitaasti. (more neutral, less descriptive) Finnish word order is flexible, but “topic first” is common in neutral statements.