Breakdown of Tänään valmistan pienen kakun ystävälleni.
minä
I
minun
my
ystävä
the friend
pieni
small
tänään
today
-lle
for
valmistaa
to prepare
kakku
the cake
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Questions & Answers about Tänään valmistan pienen kakun ystävälleni.
Where is the subject “I” in the sentence?
In Finnish you normally drop the personal pronoun when it’s clear from the verb. The ending -n on valmistan already tells you that the subject is first person singular (“I”).
Why is valmistan (present tense) translated as “will make” or “am going to make”?
Finnish has no separate future tense. You use the simple present (valmistan) plus a time adverb (here tänään) to refer to future actions: “I make” in Finnish contexts often means “I will make.”
Why is Tänään at the beginning, and can I move it elsewhere?
Word order in Finnish is quite flexible because cases mark relationships. Tänään is a time adverb (“today”) and can appear at the beginning, middle or end for emphasis:
- Tänään valmistan pienen kakun ystävälleni.
- Valmistan ystävälleni pienen kakun tänään.
All mean the same, but shifting Tänään can highlight “today.”
Why does pieni change to pienen?
Adjectives agree with their noun’s case. Here pienen is the accusative singular form of pieni (“small”) because it modifies the completely affected object kakun. Both get the -n ending.
Why is it kakun and not kakkua (partitive)?
Finnish distinguishes between total (accusative) and partial (partitive) objects. When you prepare a whole, finished cake, you use the total object (pienen kakun, accusative, marked by -n). If you were talking about making only some cake or cake in general (indefinite quantity), you’d use the partitive: pientä kakkua.
What case is ystävälleni, and how do you form it?
Ystävälleni is the allative case (-lle) plus the 1st-person possessive suffix (-ni) meaning “to/for my friend.” Formation:
- Base word ystävä (“friend”)
- Add allative ending: ystävälle (“to/for a friend”)
- Add possessive suffix for “my”: ystävälleni (“to/for my friend”).
Why are there no “a” or “the” in the translation?
Finnish has no articles. Definiteness and indefiniteness are understood from context, word order or extra words (e.g. tämä “this”). You just say pienen kakun, and context tells you it’s “a small cake” or “the small cake.”
Could I say Tänään teen pienen kakun ystävälleni or leivon pienen kakun ystävälleni?
Yes. Tehdä (here teen) is a general “to do/make,” valmistaa is “to prepare/make” (often more formal), and leipoa is specifically “to bake.”
- Tänään teen pienen kakun ystävälleni (“Today I’ll make/do a small cake for my friend.”)
- Tänään leivon pienen kakun ystävälleni (“Today I’ll bake a small cake for my friend.”)