Learn Finnish: Porvoo on kaunis paikka. - Porvoo is a beautiful place.

Finnish does not have articles like "a", "an", or "the". The phrase kaunis paikka translates to "a beautiful place" here, but in other contexts, it could mean "the beautiful place". You just figure it out from the context!

Why are the words kaunis and paikka in their basic forms here?

In Finnish, sentences that simply state "A is B" (using the verb olla, to be) usually keep both A (Porvoo) and B (kaunis paikka) in the basic, dictionary form (called the nominative case). Because the sentence is just describing what Porvoo is, no special location endings are needed.

Since this lesson is about the illative (going "into"), how would I say I am going "to Porvoo"?

To say you are going to or into a place, you need the illative case. Because Porvoo ends in two vowels, it takes the -seen ending. "To Porvoo" becomes Porvooseen.

How would the phrase kaunis paikka change if I were going into it?

In Finnish, adjectives must match the case of the noun they describe. If you wanted to say "into a beautiful place", you would add the illative ending to both words. It becomes kauniiseen paikkaan. Notice how the adjective kaunis changes to its stem kaunii- before adding -seen, while paikka just takes -an.