Learn Hardcore Finnish: Pysäköinti kadulla on kallista tänään. - Parking on the street is expensive today.

pysäköinti is a noun meaning “parking” (the act of parking), derived from the verb pysäköidä. Here it functions as the subject of the sentence: “Parking on the street…”

Why is pysäköinti used instead of pysäköiminen?

Both -minen and -nti can form verbal nouns in Finnish, but some verbs conventionally take -nti (especially loan-based stems like pysäköid-). pysäköinti is the standard term for “parking” in contexts like fees, regulations, and signs. pysäköiminen also means “the act of parking,” but may sound more like a neutral gerund.

Why is kadulla in the ‑lla form, and what does it mean?

kadulla is the adessive case of katu (“street”). The adessive case (ending -lla/-llä) expresses location “on” something. So kadulla translates to “on the street.”

What’s the difference between kadulla and kadulle?

– kadulla (adessive) means “on the street.”
– kadulle (allative) means “to the street.”
Here we describe where parking happens (“on the street”), so we use adessive kadulla.

Why is kallista in the partitive case, rather than the nominative kallis?

With olla (“to be”) plus an adjective, Finnish can use either nominative or partitive, but common practice with abstract subjects or when stating a general quality is the partitive. Since pysäköinti (an activity) is indefinite and we’re making a general statement (“is expensive”), the partitive kallista is preferred.

Could you instead say on kallis here?

Yes, you could say Pysäköinti kadulla on kallis tänään, and it would be grammatically correct. The nuance is slightly different: nominative kallis feels more like a direct label (“is expensive”), whereas partitive kallista emphasizes the ongoing quality or degree (“is (quite) expensive”).

Why isn’t tänään inflected with a case ending?

tänään is a temporal adverb (“today”) and Finnish adverbs of time are typically indeclinable. They don’t take case endings—they stand alone to specify when something happens.

Can tänään move to another position in the sentence?

Yes. Finnish word order is flexible. You could say:
• Tänään pysäköinti kadulla on kallista. (emphasizes “today”)
• Pysäköinti tänään kadulla on kallista.
All mean “Parking on the street is expensive today,” but the focus shifts slightly depending on placement.

There’s no word for “the” before street—is that normal in Finnish?

Yes. Finnish has no articles (no “a” or “the”). Definiteness is understood from context, so kadulla can mean “on the street,” “on a street,” or “on streets” in general, depending on situation.

Is the word order in Pysäköinti kadulla on kallista tänään fixed?

No, it’s a neutral, S-Loc-V-Adv order (Subject–Location–Verb–Adverb). You can rearrange elements for emphasis, but the sentence will remain grammatical. The copula on must link the subject and predicate adjective, however.