No. 580 in Finnish
ketään
"Ketään" means "anyone" or "anybody" in the partitive case.
In a sentence
En nähnyt ketään kadulla.
I didn't see anyone on the street.
The word 'ketään' is used in the partitive case to signify 'anyone' in a negative sentence, paired with the verb 'nähdä' (to see).
Ole kiltti äläkä huuda ketään.
Please don't shout at anyone.
Here, 'ketään' is again in the partitive form and is used to represent 'anyone' as the object of a negative imperative directed action.
Onko täällä ketään?
Is there anyone here?
In this question form, 'ketään' means 'anyone', used in the partitive to inquire about the existence of people.
Hän ei nähnyt ketään koulussa.
He didn't see anyone at school.
'Ketään' is used here in the context of negation where 'anyone' fits in English when there is a negative verb.
Ketään ei löytynyt tapahtumapaikalta.
No one was found at the scene.
'Ketään' is used here to express that nobody is present or found, emphasizing the absence of people in a statement.
En halua ketään päästää katsomaan.
I don't want to let anyone see.
In this sentence, 'ketään' appears reflecting an indefinite pronoun in a negative intention context ('anyone' in English).
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “ketään” in actual Finnish podcasts.
Find “ketään” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays Finnish podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into suomi, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Finnish books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).