Word
Minä seison pysäkillä.
Meaning
I am standing at the stop.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
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Questions & Answers about Minä seison pysäkillä.
Why does pysäkillä end in -llä instead of -lla?
Because of vowel harmony. The word pysäkki has the front vowels y and ä. Therefore, it must take the front vowel version of the adessive ending, which is -llä.
Why use the adessive case (-llä) for a bus stop instead of the inessive (-ssä)?
The adessive case often means 'on' or 'at'. In Finnish, a bus stop (pysäkki) is treated as an open area or surface rather than an enclosed space. So, you use -llä (at the stop) rather than -ssä (in the stop).
What happened to the double kk from the dictionary word pysäkki?
This is consonant gradation in action! Adding the -llä ending closes the final syllable, which forces the strong double kk in pysäkki to weaken into a single k, resulting in pysäkillä.
Why does the translation say 'I am standing' if seison just means 'I stand'?
Finnish doesn't have a separate continuous tense like English does. The single verb form seison translates to both 'I stand' and 'I am standing'. You just rely on context to pick the most natural English translation!