Questions & Answers about Tämä on hyvä paikka.
Why doesn't the word paikka (place) have an illative ending in this sentence?
The illative case is used to show movement into somewhere. This sentence doesn't involve any movement; it is a simple 'A is B' description. Because it just states what something is, both tämä and paikka stay in their basic (nominative) forms.
If I wanted to change this to say 'into a good place', what would happen to hyvä?
In Finnish, adjectives always have to match the case of the noun they describe. If paikka changes to the illative form paikkaan, the adjective hyvä must also take an illative ending. It becomes hyvään paikkaan.
What happens to tämä (this) if we use the illative case with this sentence?
Just like adjectives, pointer words like tämä must match the noun they point to. The illative form of tämä is tähän. So, 'into this good place' would be translated as tähän hyvään paikkaan.
I notice there's no word for 'a' before hyvä paikka. Is it implied?
Yes! Finnish does not have articles like 'a', 'an', or 'the'. You just use the noun and adjective directly, so hyvä paikka covers 'a good place' all on its own.