Breakdown of Voitko pidentää laina-aikaa vielä viikon?
Questions & Answers about Voitko pidentää laina-aikaa vielä viikon?
-ko/-kö is the Finnish yes/no question clitic. It turns a statement into a question without changing word order like English does.
- Voit pidentää laina-aikaa. = You can extend the loan period.
- Voitko pidentää laina-aikaa? = Can you extend the loan period?
Which form you use depends on vowel harmony:
- -ko after back vowels (a o u)
- -kö after front vowels (ä ö y)
Example: Onko…? but Syötkö…?
With -ko/-kö, the clitic typically attaches to the word you “question” or put in focus, and that word often comes first.
- Neutral: Voitko pidentää…? (Are you able to…?/Can you…?)
- Different focus: Laina-aikaako voit pidentää? (Is it the loan period you can extend?) — sounds marked/emphatic.
So verb-first is common for neutral questions, but Finnish can move things around when you want to emphasize something.
It’s the 1st infinitive (dictionary form), used after modal verbs like voida (to be able to/can), saada (to be allowed to/get to), pitää (must), etc.
- Voin pidentää. = I can extend.
- Voitko pidentää…? = Can you extend…?
laina-aikaa is partitive singular. Many Finnish verbs that mean increase/extend/change the amount or degree of something commonly take a partitive object, because the action affects something “partially/gradually” rather than treating it as a completed whole.
- pidentää aikaa = extend time
- pidentää laina-aikaa = extend the loan period
You may see laina-ajan (genitive/accusative) in some contexts, but pidentää + partitive is very common and often the most natural choice.
laina-aika is a compound: laina (loan) + aika (time/period). In Finnish, compounds are usually written as one word, and sometimes a hyphen is used for readability or established spelling—especially when two vowels meet at the boundary (laina + aika). Both of these are encountered:
- laina-aika (very common, clear to read)
- lainaaika (also possible)
In libraries and official-ish contexts, laina-aika with a hyphen is extremely common.
viikon is the genitive/accusative singular form used in a common “duration” pattern meaning for a (whole) week / another week.
- vielä viikon ≈ for one more week
viikkoa (partitive) would more likely suggest an indefinite/approximate duration in many contexts (like “for a week or so”), depending on the sentence.
That said, Finnish has multiple natural ways to express this idea, and the nuance can shift slightly (see next question).
Yes—these are common alternatives, and the choice is partly stylistic and partly about what you want to emphasize:
Voitko pidentää laina-aikaa vielä viikon?
Very natural: “extend it for another week.”Voitko pidentää laina-aikaa vielä viikolla? (viikolla = adessive)
Emphasizes “extend it by a week” (the amount of extension). This is especially logical with pidentää.Voitko pidentää laina-aikaa vielä viikoksi? (viikoksi = translative)
Can sound like “extend it to/for a week (as the new arrangement).” It’s understandable, but many speakers prefer viikon or viikolla with pidentää.
All three can be heard; viikon and viikolla are the safest, most idiomatic choices here.
vielä can mean still/yet, but it also commonly means (one) more / another in requests and quantity/time expressions.
- vielä yksi = one more
- vielä viikon = another week So here it’s “extend the loan period another week.”
Voitko…? is polite and normal. If you want to sound softer/more formal, Finnish often uses the conditional:
- Voisitko pidentää laina-aikaa vielä viikon? = Could you extend…? Or you can put the conditional on the main verb:
- Pidentäisitkö laina-aikaa vielä viikon? = Would you extend…?
In customer-service situations, these conditional versions are very common.
You can use the plural 2nd person:
- Voitteko pidentää laina-aikaa vielä viikon?
- Voisitteko pidentää laina-aikaa vielä viikon? (even more polite)
In Finland, singular sinä-style questions (voitko) are widely used even with strangers, but plural voitteko is still used for extra formality in some settings.