Pysäköintilupa on voimassa perjantaihin asti.

Pysäköintilupa means parking permit.

It is a compound noun, which is extremely common in Finnish. It is made from:

• pysäköinti = parking
• lupa = permit / permission

In Finnish, compounds are usually written as one word, so pysäköintilupa is the normal form, not pysäköinti lupa.

A useful rule: in Finnish compounds, the last part is usually the main word. So here, the thing is a kind of lupa.

On voimassa means is valid or is in force.

This is a very common Finnish expression used for things like:

• permits
• laws
• contracts
• tickets
• passports

So:

• Lippu on voimassa. = The ticket is valid.
• Sopimus on voimassa. = The contract is in force / valid.

Literally, voimassa comes from voima meaning force or power, and -ssa is the ending meaning in. So the expression originally has the sense of being in force.

Not exactly in the same way as an ordinary adjective like iso or kaunis.

Voimassa is actually a case form of the noun voima, but in modern Finnish it works as part of the fixed expression olla voimassa = to be valid / to be in force.

So a learner should mostly remember on voimassa as a set phrase.

Because Finnish marks grammatical relationships with case endings.

Here, perjantaihin is the form used after asti to show the endpoint of time:

• perjantai = Friday
• perjantaihin asti = until Friday

The ending -hin here is part of the illative case, which often expresses movement or direction into/to, but with time expressions it can also mark a limit or endpoint.

So perjantaihin asti literally has the idea of up to Friday.

It is the illative singular of perjantai.

The base form is:

• perjantai = Friday

The illative form is:

• perjantaihin = into Friday / up to Friday, depending on context

With words ending in a long vowel or diphthong, the illative often uses -hin, so:

• maa → maahan
• tie → tiehen
• perjantai → perjantaihin

In this sentence, the illative is used with asti to mark how long the permit is valid.

Asti means until, up to, or as far as.

In this sentence:

• perjantaihin asti = until Friday

Yes, you can often replace it with saakka:

• Pysäköintilupa on voimassa perjantaihin saakka.

This means almost the same thing.

In many everyday situations, asti and saakka are very close in meaning. Learners can usually treat them as near-equivalents, although style and nuance may vary a little depending on context and speaker.

Usually, yes.

A native speaker would normally understand perjantaihin asti to mean that the permit is valid through Friday, or at least up to some point on Friday. The exact cutoff time may depend on the situation.

If absolute precision is important, Finnish would usually specify the time more clearly, for example:

• perjantaihin klo 18 asti = until Friday at 6 p.m.
• perjantain loppuun asti = until the end of Friday

So the short answer is: Friday is normally included.

Because Finnish does not have articles like English a/an and the.

So pysäköintilupa can mean:

• a parking permit
• the parking permit

The context tells you which one is meant.

That is very normal in Finnish, and English speakers often need time to get used to it.

The sentence as given is the neutral, natural word order:

• Pysäköintilupa = subject
• on = verb
• voimassa = complement
• perjantaihin asti = time limit expression

So:

• Pysäköintilupa on voimassa perjantaihin asti.

Finnish word order is fairly flexible, but changing it usually changes the emphasis:

• Perjantaihin asti pysäköintilupa on voimassa.
  This emphasizes until Friday.

The original order is the best one to learn first.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

PY-sah-koi-ntee-loo-pa on voi-mah-sah PEHR-yan-tie-hin ah-stee

A few helpful points:

• Finnish stress is usually on the first syllable of each word.
• ä sounds somewhat like the vowel in cat, but cleaner and shorter.
• ö has no exact English equivalent; it is similar to the vowel in some pronunciations of French peur or German schön.
• y also has no exact English equivalent; it is like Finnish u said with the lips rounded more tightly, similar to German ü.
• Finnish pronunciation is usually quite regular, so once you know the sounds, words are pronounced very predictably.

People might understand it, because validi exists in Finnish, but it is not the most natural choice here.

For official validity, Finnish much more naturally says:

• on voimassa

So for permits, documents, rules, and similar things, voimassa is the expression you should learn and use.