Learn Hardcore Finnish: Ilman villapaitaa minua paleltaa sisälläkin. - Without a sweater I feel cold even indoors.

So villapaitaa is in the partitive because ilman governs that case. Nominative villapaita or genitive villapaidan would be incorrect here.

What does minua paleltaa literally mean, and how is it different from minä palelen?

Literally, minua paleltaa is something like “it chills me” / “I am being chilled”.

minua = me (in the partitive case)
paleltaa = to feel cold / to be chilled

The construction [partitive person] + paleltaa is the natural, idiomatic way to say I feel cold / I am freezing.

You can also say minä palelen (from the verb palella), which is grammatically correct, but:

minua paleltaa sounds more neutral and common in everyday speech.
minä palelen can sound a bit more like an active state (I am freezing, I’m cold) and is slightly less idiomatic in many contexts.

In practice, for feeling cold, minua paleltaa is what you’ll hear most.

Why is it minua and not minä in minua paleltaa?

Minua is the partitive form of minä.

Verbs that express feelings, sensations or needs often use this pattern:

[partitive experiencer] + verb (3rd person singular)

Examples:

minua paleltaa = I feel cold
minua väsyttää = I am tired / I feel sleepy
minua janottaa = I am thirsty
minua huolestuttaa = I am worried

In these, the person is the experiencer, not the grammatical subject in nominative. That’s why it is minua, not minä.

Is paleltaa a normal personal verb? How do you use it with different people?

In this meaning (to feel cold), paleltaa behaves like an impersonal sensation verb: the verb itself stays in 3rd person singular, and the person is in the partitive.

minua paleltaa = I feel cold
sinua paleltaa = you feel cold
häntä paleltaa = he / she feels cold
meitä paleltaa = we feel cold
teitä paleltaa = you (pl.) feel cold
heitä paleltaa = they feel cold

The verb does not change to paleltavat with a plural experiencer; it remains paleltaa.

There is also a related verb palella, which you can conjugate personally (palelen, palelet, palelee…), but in sentences like this, minua paleltaa is more common.

How is minua paleltaa different from minulla on kylmä and olen kylmä?

All three can describe being cold, but they have different nuances and naturalness:

minua paleltaa
- Very common and idiomatic.
- Focuses on the sensation of being cold.
- Often sounds a bit stronger, like I’m freezing / I really feel cold.
minulla on kylmä
- Literally: “I have cold”.
- Very common and neutral, close to English I am cold.
- Slightly more descriptive, less “dramatic” than minua paleltaa.
olen kylmä
- Literally: “I am cold (as an attribute)”.
- Much less used for “I feel cold” and can sound odd or ambiguous.
- More likely to describe a cold person in a physical or metaphorical sense (e.g. a “cold” personality), not just temporarily feeling chilly.

In everyday speech for I’m cold, Finns mostly say minulla on kylmä or minua paleltaa.

What does sisällä express here, and how is it different from sisään?

sisällä is the inessive form, showing a static location:

sisällä = inside, indoors (staying there)

sisään is the illative form, showing movement into something:

sisään = inside, in (going in)

So:

Olen sisällä. = I am inside.
Menen sisään. = I go inside.

In the sentence Ilman villapaitaa minua paleltaa sisälläkin, sisällä says in the interior / indoors as a place where you are (not where you are going).

What exactly does the -kin in sisälläkin mean?

The clitic -kin usually means also / too / even. It attaches to the word it is logically connected to.

Here, sisälläkin suggests something like:

even indoors
inside as well

The idea is that you might already be cold somewhere else (e.g. outside), and even inside you feel cold without a sweater.

You could attach -kin to a different word to change what is being emphasized:

minuakin paleltaa = I am cold too (someone else is cold already)
ilman villapaitaa kin (normally written as ilman villapaitaakin) = even without a sweater

In this sentence, putting it on sisällä makes the “indoors” part the thing that is “also/even”.

Can the word order be changed, for example to Minua paleltaa sisälläkin ilman villapaitaa?

Yes. Finnish word order is quite flexible. These are all grammatically correct:

Ilman villapaitaa minua paleltaa sisälläkin.
Minua paleltaa sisälläkin ilman villapaitaa.
Minua paleltaa ilman villapaitaa sisälläkin.

The differences are mainly in emphasis:

Starting with ilman villapaitaa highlights the condition (without a sweater).
Starting with minua (Minua paleltaa…) highlights the speaker’s experience.

All of them still have the same basic meaning; Finnish uses word order more for focus than for basic grammar.

Is ilman a preposition, or is it just the genitive of ilma?

Historically, ilman is the genitive of ilma (air).

In modern usage here, ilman functions as an adposition meaning “without”, and it behaves much like a preposition:

It comes before its complement: ilman villapaitaa.
It requires the partitive: ilman rahaa, ilman kahvia, ilman sinua.

So you can think of it as a preposition “without” that happens to look like a genitive form.

Could you omit minua and say Ilman villapaitaa paleltaa sisälläkin?

Yes, that is possible, but the meaning shifts slightly.

Ilman villapaitaa minua paleltaa sisälläkin.
- Specifically: I feel cold indoors without a sweater.
Ilman villapaitaa paleltaa sisälläkin.
- More general: One feels cold indoors without a sweater / you feel cold indoors without a sweater.
- It sounds like a general statement or complaint, not clearly tied to a particular person.

Finnish often drops explicit pronouns when they are clear from context or when a general statement is being made.

How would you say “without sweaters” or “without my sweater” using this structure?

You still use ilman + partitive, but you change number and add possession if needed:

without sweaters
- ilman villapaitoja
- villapaitoja = partitive plural of villapaita
without my sweater
- ilman villapaitaani
- villapaitani = my sweater
- villapaitaani = partitive of villapaitani

Examples in full sentences:

Ilman villapaitoja minua paleltaa sisälläkin. = Without sweaters, I feel cold even indoors.
Ilman villapaitaani minua paleltaa sisälläkin. = Without my sweater, I feel cold even indoors.

Does sisälläkin necessarily mean “inside a building”, or can it be inside anything?

sisällä by itself just means inside / in the interior of something. It does not inherently specify what you are inside.

In many everyday contexts, sisällä is understood as indoors (in a building).
But it can also mean inside any closed space, depending on context:
- autossa sisällä = inside the car
- laatikossa sisällä = inside the box

In Ilman villapaitaa minua paleltaa sisälläkin, most readers will naturally interpret sisälläkin as indoors as well, especially if the contrast with being outside is implied.