Finnish Splits Place Into Three
English says there and leaves it at that. Finnish asks a second question every time: are you standing in it, going to it, or coming from it?
| in it | to it | from it |
|---|
| here | täällä | tänne | täältä |
| there | siellä | sinne | sieltä |
| over there | tuolla | tuonne | tuolta |
Read the table down the columns and you have the whole system. The static row you already know. The other two rows are what this lesson adds.
The endings are the same ones you have just learned on nouns: -llä for being somewhere, -nne for going, -ltä for coming from.
Asking the Question
Minne? is where to?. It pairs with mihin, which you met with the illative — the two are interchangeable, and minne is the one you will hear more often in speech.
Up, Down, and Away
The same static-versus-motion split runs up and down the vertical axis:
| in it | to it |
|---|
| up | ylhäällä | ylös |
| down | alhaalla | alas |
So a bird sitting in a tree is ylhäällä, and a bird taking off flies ylös.
Pois
Pois is away — motion out of wherever you are, with no destination named. It is the one word here that does not belong to the grid, and it is one of the most useful adverbs in the language.
