Minä soitan siskolleni keskiyöllä.

I call my sister at midnight.

Breakdown of Minä soitan siskolleni keskiyöllä.

• minä: I
• minun: my
• soittaa: to call
• sisko: the sister
• keskiyöllä: at midnight

Questions & Answers about Minä soitan siskolleni keskiyöllä.

Why is minä included in the sentence? Isn’t the subject pronoun optional in Finnish?

In Finnish you can usually drop the subject pronoun because the verb ending tells you who is doing the action. For example, soitan already means “I call.” Here minä is optional and is used for emphasis or clarity. If you omit it, you still get a correct sentence:

• Soitan siskolleni keskiyöllä.
(“I call my sister at midnight.”)

Including minä stresses who is doing the calling.

What case is siskolleni in, and why is it not in the accusative?

Siskolleni is in the ALLATIVE case (marked by -lle) plus the first-person possessive suffix -ni. The ALLATIVE expresses motion or direction “to” someone:

• sisko (sister)
• siskolle (to sister)
• siskolleni (to my sister)

When you “call someone,” Finnish treats the person as the indirect object (“to my sister”), not as a direct object. That’s why you don’t use an accusative or partitive case here.

What does the -ni ending in siskolleni mean?

The -ni is a possessive suffix meaning “my.” You attach it to a noun (or noun + case ending) to show that it belongs to you. Examples:

• kirja (book) → kirjani (my book)
• ystävälle (to a friend) → ystävälleni (to my friend)

So siskolleni literally means “to my sister.”

Why is keskiyöllä in the adessive case (-llä)? How do you say “at midnight”?

Finnish uses the adessive case (-lla/llä) for point-in-time expressions like “at midnight.” The base word is keskiyö (“midnight”), and adding -llä gives:

• keskiyö → keskiyöllä (“at midnight”)

Other time examples in adessive:

• aamu → aamulla (“in the morning/at morning”)
• iltapäivä → iltapäivällä (“in the afternoon”)

What’s the difference between keskellä yötä and keskiyöllä?

• keskellä yötä (inessive + genitive) means “in the middle of the night” (an interval).
• keskiyöllä (adessive) means “at midnight” (a specific point in time).

Use keskellä yötä when you mean “during the night’s midpoint,” and keskiyöllä when you refer exactly to 00:00 hours.

How do you conjugate the verb soittaa, and why does it become soitan?

Soittaa is a Type II verb (stem ends in -i). To form the first-person singular (I), you:

1. Take the infinitive stem: soitta-
2. Remove -a: soitt-
3. Add personal ending -an: soittan → with double letter assimilation it becomes soitan

Conjugation table in present tense:

Minä soitan
Sinä soitat
Hän soittaa
Me soitamme
Te soitatte
He soittavat

Can you change the word order? For example, is Keskiyöllä soitan siskolleni correct?

Yes. Finnish word order is quite flexible. Placing keskiyöllä at the front emphasizes the time:

• Keskiyöllä soitan siskolleni.

You could also say:

• Siskolleni soitan keskiyöllä.
• Soitan keskiyöllä siskolleni.

All mean “I call my sister at midnight,” but the focus shifts slightly with each order.

Does soittaa always mean “to call (on the phone)”? I thought it means “to play” (an instrument).

Soittaa can mean both:

1. “to play” (an instrument): soittaa pianoa (“to play the piano”)
2. “to call” (on the phone): soittaa jollekulle (“to call someone”)

In the sentence soitan siskolleni, the structure soittaa + allative (jollekin) makes it clear you’re calling someone. If you meant playing, you’d have a direct object in partitive, like soitan pianoa.

How do you pronounce keskiyöllä and where is the stress?

Finnish stress is always on the first syllable of the word. Keskiyöllä is broken into syllables:

kes-ki-yöl-lä

Pronunciation key (approximate):

KEH-skee-YUHL-lah

• Stress on KEH
• Double l is held slightly longer than a single l.