Breakdown of Palvelutiskillä minulta kysytään myös henkilötunnus uudestaan.
Questions & Answers about Palvelutiskillä minulta kysytään myös henkilötunnus uudestaan.
Palvelutiskillä is the form of palvelutiski, meaning service desk / service counter.
The ending -llä is the adessive case, which often means:
- on
- at
- by
So here palvelutiskillä means at the service desk or at the service counter.
It does not have to mean literally on top of the desk. Finnish often uses -lla/-llä for places like counters, desks, tables, stations, and so on.
Finnish has no articles, so there is no direct equivalent of a or the.
That means:
- palvelutiski can mean a service desk or the service desk
- henkilötunnus can mean a personal identity code or the personal identity code
The exact meaning comes from context.
In this sentence, the context makes it natural to understand:
- palvelutiskillä = at the service desk
- henkilötunnus = the personal identity code / my personal identity code
This is because the verb kysyä often follows the pattern:
kysyä joltakulta jotakin
= to ask someone for something
literally: to ask something from someone
So:
- minulta = from me
- sinulta = from you
- häneltä = from him / her
An English speaker may expect something like ask me, but Finnish usually treats the person as the source of the information.
So:
- minulta kysytään = they ask me / I am asked
- literally: something is asked from me
Kysytään is the present passive form of kysyä.
So it means something like:
- they ask
- people ask
- one asks
- I am asked
depending on context.
In this sentence, the speaker does not say who is asking. The point is just that this happens at the service desk.
A more explicit active version would be:
Palvelutiskillä he kysyvät minulta myös henkilötunnuksen uudestaan.
That means the same basic thing, but now the subject he = they is stated.
Not exactly.
Finnish passive is often used when the doer is unspecified, not necessarily when the focus is on a true English-style passive.
So kysytään can often be translated either as:
- they ask
- people ask
- I am asked
depending on what sounds most natural in English.
That is why this sentence may be translated naturally in more than one way, even though the Finnish grammar stays the same.
Here henkilötunnus is the object of the verb.
In Finnish, object case depends on both:
- the verb
- whether the object is seen as total/complete or partial/incomplete
- whether the clause is active or passive
In this sentence, the personal identity code is understood as a specific complete item, so it is a total object.
In a passive sentence, a singular total object appears in the nominative, so we get:
henkilötunnus
Compare:
- active: He kysyvät minulta henkilötunnuksen.
- passive: Minulta kysytään henkilötunnus.
So the passive changes the object form here.
A partitive form like henkilötunnusta would sound less natural in this context, because the speaker means a specific full code.
A very useful pattern is:
kysyä joltakulta jotakin
= to ask someone something / to ask someone for something
In this sentence:
- minulta = the person asked
- henkilötunnus = the thing asked for
Other examples:
- Kysyn opettajalta apua. = I ask the teacher for help.
- Hän kysyi minulta osoitteen. = He/She asked me for the address.
- Minulta kysyttiin nimeä. = I was asked for my name.
So this sentence follows a very common Finnish structure.
Myös means also / too.
In this sentence, it most naturally emphasizes henkilötunnus:
- besides other things, the personal identity code is also asked again
So the idea is something like: other information is asked, and the personal identity code too.
In Finnish, myös is usually placed near the word or phrase it emphasizes, but word order can still be flexible.
Uudestaan means again, once again, or over again.
Here it means that the same information is being requested again.
You can often also use:
- uudelleen = again, anew
- taas = again
But the feel is slightly different:
- uudestaan / uudelleen often emphasize repetition of the action
- taas is a broader everyday again
So in this sentence:
- uudestaan is very natural
- uudelleen would also work well
- taas might be possible in some contexts, but it can sound a little less precise here
Finnish word order is fairly flexible, because the case endings already show the grammatical roles.
This sentence begins with Palvelutiskillä to set the scene:
- At the service desk, ...
Then comes:
- minulta = from me
- kysytään = is asked / they ask
- myös henkilötunnus = also the personal identity code
- uudestaan = again
So the sentence is organized by information flow, not only by rigid subject-verb-object order.
Other word orders are possible, but they change the emphasis slightly. For example:
- Minulta kysytään palvelutiskillä myös henkilötunnus uudestaan.
- Palvelutiskillä minulta kysytään uudestaan myös henkilötunnus.
The original version is natural if the speaker wants to start by talking about what happens at the service desk.
Because it is already clear from minulta.
If someone asks from me for a personal identity code, the natural assumption is that it is my code.
Finnish often leaves out possessive words when the meaning is obvious from context.
So instead of saying something heavier like:
minun henkilötunnukseni
the sentence simply uses:
henkilötunnus
That is very normal Finnish style.