Taksi on kadun päässä.

The taxi is at the end of the street.

Breakdown of Taksi on kadun päässä.

• olla: to be
• katu: the street
• taksi: the taxi
• päässä: at the end

Questions & Answers about Taksi on kadun päässä.

What does each part mean, and how is the phrase built?

• Taksi = taxi (subject)
• on = is (3rd person singular of olla, “to be”)
• kadun = of the street (genitive of katu)
• päässä = at/in the head/end (inessive of pää, “head/end”) Together, kadun päässä literally means “in the street’s head,” i.e., “at the end of the street.” It’s a postpositional phrase: [GENITIVE + postposition].

Why is it kadun and not katu?

Because many Finnish postpositions (like päässä, edessä, takana, alla, päällä) take a genitive complement. So you use the genitive of katu, which is kadun. This is a standard pattern: talon edessä (in front of the house), pöydän alla (under the table), kaupungin keskellä (in the middle of the city).

Why is it päässä and not something with -lla like päällä?

• päässä is the inessive (the “in/at” case) of pää and forms a fixed postposition meaning “at the end (of).”
• päällä means “on (top of)” and would be used for surfaces: pöydän päällä (on top of the table).
  So for endpoints you use päässä, not päällä.

What’s the difference between Taksi on kadun päässä and Kadun päässä on taksi?

• Taksi on kadun päässä = “The taxi is at the end of the street.” You’re talking about a specific, known taxi (topic-first).
• Kadun päässä on taksi = “There is a taxi at the end of the street.” This introduces a taxi as new information (existential sentence, location-first).
  Word order in Finnish often signals whether something is known/specific or being introduced.

If Finnish has no articles, how do I know if it means “a taxi” or “the taxi”?

Context and word order do the job:

• Known/specific: Taksi on kadun päässä ≈ “the taxi…”
• Introducing something: Kadun päässä on taksi ≈ “there is a taxi…” You can also make it explicit:
• Se taksi on kadun päässä (that/the taxi…)
• Yksi taksi on kadun päässä (one/a taxi…)

How do I say “to the end of the street” and “from the end of the street”?

Use the local case trio with pää:

• To: kadun päähän (illative) — e.g., Aja kadun päähän. (Drive to the end of the street.)
• At: kadun päässä (inessive) — our sentence.
• From: kadun päästä (elative) — e.g., Taksi tulee kadun päästä. (The taxi is coming from the end of the street.)

Can I say kadun lopussa instead of kadun päässä?

Yes. Both can mean “at the end of the street.”

• kadun päässä is very idiomatic for physical endpoints.
• kadun lopussa is also common; loppu is “end/finish,” used for ends of texts, periods, etc. For streets, both are fine; päässä may feel a bit more spatial/physical.

What happened to the t in katu → kadun?

It’s consonant gradation: t → d in certain inflected forms (the “weak grade”). In the genitive singular, katu becomes kadun. You’ll see similar patterns elsewhere:

• satu → sadun (gen.)
  Note that not all forms trigger the weak grade: the partitive is katua (not kadua).

How do I pronounce the tricky parts like päässä?

• Stress the first syllable of each word: TÁK-si on KÁ-dun PÄÄS-sä.
• ää is a long front vowel (like the vowel in “cat,” but longer and more fronted).
• Double letters are long: päässä has both a long ää and a long ss.
• taksi is pronounced with ks (Finnish writes “x” as ks), roughly “tahk-see.”

Could I say Taksi on kadun pää?

Not for location. Kadun pää is a noun phrase (“the street’s end”), e.g., Kadun pää on tukossa (The end of the street is blocked). To say something is located there, use the inessive postposition: kadun päässä.

How do I express distance with päässä (e.g., “a kilometer away”)?

Use genitive + päässä:

• Kilometrin päässä = a kilometer away
• Viiden minuutin päässä = five minutes away
  Example: Kauppa on kilometrin päässä. (The store is a kilometer away.)

What’s the difference between kadulla, kadun varrella, and kadun päässä?

• kadulla = on the street (somewhere along/on it)
• kadun varrella = along/by the street (lining or flanking the street)
• kadun päässä = at the end of the street
  Example: Taksi on kadulla, Taksi on kadun varrella, Taksi on kadun päässä — three different spatial relations.

How do I make a question or a negation with this sentence?

• Yes–no question: Onko taksi kadun päässä? — Answer: On. / Ei ole.
• Wh-question: Missä taksi on? — Taksi on kadun päässä.
• Negation: Taksi ei ole kadun päässä.

Why is it spelled taksi and not taxi?

Finnish adapts loanwords to Finnish spelling and sound rules. The sound [ks] is written ks, so English “taxi” becomes taksi. You’ll still see Taxi in brand names, but the common word is taksi.