työstä

työstä is the elative singular form of the Finnish noun työ, meaning work or job. The elative case, marked with the suffix -stä (or -stä after certain vowels), typically expresses source or origin (from) but in Finnish it is also commonly used to indicate the topic of discussion or writing in phrases describing what someone is talking about or writing about.

The main uses of työstä fall into two broad categories. First, it can denote origin or source, as in phrases that mean “from work” or “out of work.” Second, it is frequently used to express the topic of discussion, comment, or writing. For example, mitkä mieltä olet työstä? translates to “What do you think about work?” and Olen kirjoittanut artikkelin työstä means “I have written an article about work.” Another common construction is työstä johtuvat ongelmat, meaning “problems arising from work,” where the elative marks causation or source of the issues.

Related forms of työ help show the range of Finnish case endings. The genitive is työn ("of work"), the partitive is työtä, and other cases include työssä (in work) or työstä (from/about work in the elative). The exact meaning of työstä is thus determined by context and the accompanying verb or noun.

In usage, työstä often appears with verbs that express thinking, discussing, or describing, as well as with nouns indicating content or topic. It is a standard example of how Finnish expresses “about” or “from” with the elative case, reflecting both source and thematic relationships in sentence structure.