Breakdown of Pölyä kertyy nopeasti, joten pyyhin pöytää joka päivä.
Questions & Answers about Pölyä kertyy nopeasti, joten pyyhin pöytää joka päivä.
With verbs like kertyä (to accumulate), Finnish often uses an “existential” type of structure: some amount of X appears/accumulates. In these, the thing that accumulates is commonly in the partitive singular to show an unbounded quantity (not a specific, complete amount).
So pölyä kertyy means roughly dust accumulates / there is dust building up (dust as an indefinite mass), rather than talking about a specific, fully-defined “the dust”.
Kertyy is 3rd person singular present of the verb kertyä (to accumulate, to build up). It is not passive.
- kertyä → kertyy (present, he/she/it accumulates)
It’s an intransitive verb here: the sentence isn’t saying who makes it happen; it just states that dust builds up.
Nothing is missing; Finnish allows this to be complete without stating a location. The sentence just says dust accumulates (in general / in the relevant context).
You can add a location if you want:
- Pölyä kertyy pöydälle nopeasti. = Dust accumulates on the table quickly.
But it’s optional if the context already makes it obvious.
Joten means so / therefore, and it introduces a result/consequence:
- Pölyä kertyy nopeasti, joten... = Dust accumulates quickly, so...
Koska means because, and it introduces a reason:
- Pyyhin pöytää joka päivä, koska pölyä kertyy nopeasti. = I wipe the table every day because dust accumulates quickly.
Both are natural; they just flip which clause is framed as cause vs result.
In Finnish, when joten connects two independent clauses, you normally use a comma before it:
- Pölyä kertyy nopeasti, joten pyyhin...
This is similar to English punctuation with “so” when it clearly joins two full clauses (though Finnish comma rules are generally stricter/more consistent here).
Pyyhin is 1st person singular present of pyyhkiä (to wipe):
- (minä) pyyhin = I wipe
Finnish usually drops the subject pronoun minä because the verb ending already shows the person.
Pyyhkiä is a general verb meaning to wipe / to wipe off / to wipe clean, typically with something like a cloth, paper towel, sponge, etc. It doesn’t strictly specify the tool, but the default mental image is wiping with a cloth-like item.
If you want to be explicit, you can add a tool in the adessive case:
- Pyyhin pöytää liinalla. = I wipe the table with a cloth.
Finnish object case often reflects whether the action is seen as complete or ongoing/partial.
- pyyhin pöytää (partitive) = I wipe the table (process-focused, not explicitly “finished completely”)
- pyyhin pöydän (genitive/accusative-style total object) = I wipe the table (clean)/I wipe the table completely
In everyday statements about routine cleaning, partitive is very common because it describes the activity in a general, habitual way.
Joka päivä means every day.
- joka = each/every (a form of the relative pronoun used like a determiner here)
- päivä stays in the nominative singular in this fixed-like expression: each day.
You’ll see the same pattern in other time expressions:
- joka viikko = every week
- joka vuosi = every year
Yes—Finnish word order is flexible, mainly for emphasis and information structure.
Neutral here is:
- Pölyä kertyy nopeasti, joten pyyhin pöytää joka päivä.
Possible variations:
- Pölyä kertyy nopeasti, joten pyyhin joka päivä pöytää. (emphasizes every day as a routine)
- Joka päivä pyyhin pöytää, koska pölyä kertyy nopeasti. (puts the routine first; reason after)
The core meaning stays, but the “spotlight” shifts depending on what comes first.