Tänä vuonna tapahtumia on kaikkialla kaupungissa.

This year there are events everywhere in the city.

Breakdown of Tänä vuonna tapahtumia on kaikkialla kaupungissa.

• olla: to be
• -ssa: in
• kaupunki: the city
• tänä vuonna: this year
• tapahtuma: the event
• kaikkialla: everywhere

Questions & Answers about Tänä vuonna tapahtumia on kaikkialla kaupungissa.

What exactly are tänä and vuonna, and why do they look like that?

Both tänä and vuonna are in the essive case, which is often used for time expressions.

• tämä = this
  
  • essive: tänä → tänä = as this / in this (time)
• vuosi = year
  
  • essive: vuonna → vuonna = in (the) year

Together tänä vuonna literally means “in this year” and is the standard way to say “this year” in Finnish.

You will regularly see the pattern:

• tänä vuonna – this year
• viime vuonna – last year
• ensi vuonna – next year

So the form is about grammar (case) rather than a special word for “this year”.

Could you say tänä vuotena or tässä vuodessa instead of tänä vuonna?

• tänä vuotena is grammatically possible, but it sounds more formal / old-fashioned and is much less common. Native speakers overwhelmingly say tänä vuonna.
• tässä vuodessa uses the inessive case (-ssa) and would literally mean “inside this year”. It’s not used for the simple time expression “this year”, so it sounds wrong in this context.

So for everyday Finnish, stick to tänä vuonna.

What does tapahtumia mean exactly, and why does it end in -ia instead of -at like tapahtumat?

tapahtuma = event.

• tapahtumat = nominative plural (“the events” – as a definite group)
• tapahtumia = partitive plural (“some events / events (in general)”)

In this sentence, tapahtumia is in the partitive plural because:

1. The number of events is indefinite / unspecified (there are events, not a specific known set).
2. This is an existential sentence (“there are X somewhere”), which very often puts the “new” or indefinite thing in the partitive.

So tapahtumia here is like saying “(some) events” / “events in general” rather than “the events”.

Why is the verb on (3rd person singular) and not ovat, even though tapahtumia is plural?

In Finnish existential sentences (the “there is/are …” type), when the logical subject is in the partitive, the verb normally stays in the 3rd person singular:

• Pöydällä on kirjoja. – There are (some) books on the table.
  (verb on, not ovat)

Compare with a normal sentence where the subject is a nominative plural:

• Kirjat ovat pöydällä. – The books are on the table.

In your sentence:

• tapahtumia is partitive plural → verb stays on
• If you said Tapahtumat ovat kaikkialla kaupungissa, then tapahtumat is nominative plural and you would use ovat.

So on is correct because of the existential structure and the partitive subject.

Is tapahtumia the subject of the sentence?

Functionally, yes: tapahtumia is what “exists” in the sentence.

Grammatically, Finnish grammars often call this pattern an existential clause rather than a normal subject–verb–object sentence. The “subject-like” element (tapahtumia) is in the partitive, not in the nominative, but it still answers the question “What is there?”.

So:

• Tänä vuonna tapahtumia on kaikkialla kaupungissa.
  → “What is (there) everywhere in the city this year?” → tapahtumia (events).

You can think of tapahtumia as the logical subject of an existential clause.

How is the word order here different from normal Finnish, and what does it emphasize?

A very basic existential pattern is:

[Place] + on + [something]
Kaupungissa on tapahtumia. – There are events in the city.

Your sentence rearranges several pieces for emphasis:

• Tänä vuonna – puts time first → emphasizes this year as the frame.
• tapahtumia on – bringing tapahtumia in front of on highlights the existence/number of events.
• kaikkialla kaupungissa – placed at the end → strong emphasis on everywhere in the city.

Compare:

• Kaupungissa on tänä vuonna tapahtumia kaikkialla. (more neutral)
• Tänä vuonna on tapahtumia kaikkialla kaupungissa. (neutral, time first)
• Tänä vuonna tapahtumia on kaikkialla kaupungissa. (strong stress on the wide spread of events this year)

The meaning stays basically the same, but this word order sounds like stressing that this year, events really are everywhere in the city.

Could you also say Tänä vuonna on tapahtumia kaikkialla kaupungissa? Is there a difference?

Yes, that version is perfectly correct:

• Tänä vuonna on tapahtumia kaikkialla kaupungissa.

Difference in nuance:

• Tänä vuonna tapahtumia on kaikkialla kaupungissa.
  → extra emphasis on tapahtumia and on the contrast “events there really are (and they’re everywhere)”.
• Tänä vuonna on tapahtumia kaikkialla kaupungissa.
  → more neutral; just states the fact that “this year there are events everywhere in the city”.

In practice, both sentences would usually be understood the same way; the difference is mainly about focus/emphasis.

Why do we have both kaikkialla and kaupungissa? Doesn’t kaikkialla already mean “everywhere”?

kaikkialla literally means “everywhere (in all places)”, but by itself it does not specify where that “everywhere” is.

By adding kaupungissa (in the city), we specify the domain:

• kaikkialla – everywhere (in some context)
• kaikkialla kaupungissa – everywhere in the city

So the sentence says: this year, within the city, events are all over the place, not just in a few locations.

What is the difference between kaikkialla kaupungissa and koko kaupungissa?

Both can sometimes be translated as “all over the city”, but they feel slightly different:

• kaikkialla kaupungissa
  
  • more like “everywhere in the city”, stressing many individual locations scattered around.
• koko kaupungissa
  
  • literally “in the whole city”, stressing the entire area as one continuous whole.

In many contexts they can be interchangeable, but:

• kaikkialla kaupungissa → events are located in lots of different places.
• koko kaupungissa → the city as a whole is affected / involved.

Why is it kaupungissa and not kaupungilla?

Both kaupungissa and kaupungilla come from kaupunki (city), but they use different cases and therefore different spatial ideas:

• kaupungissa = inessive case (in, inside) → “in the city”, inside the city area.
• kaupungilla = adessive case (on, at, by, in the area of)
  Often used for:
  • being in town / downtown in a looser sense
  • being at someone’s place (e.g. Jaanan luona / Jaanalla)
  • being on / at some outdoor location.

For general “in the city (area)”, kaupungissa is the normal, straightforward choice, which fits this sentence.

How would you negate this sentence?

You mainly change the verb on to the negative ei ole and choose what you want to negate:

1. Neutral, “there are not events everywhere in the city this year”:

   • Tänä vuonna ei ole tapahtumia kaikkialla kaupungissa.

2. Stronger focus on tapahtumia as what is missing:

   • Tänä vuonna tapahtumia ei ole kaikkialla kaupungissa.

Note that tapahtumia stays in the partitive plural even in the negative sentence; Finnish normally uses partitive with negation.

What’s the difference between tänä vuonna and tänään?

• tänä vuonna = this year

  • tänä (essive of tämä) + vuonna (essive of vuosi)
  • refers to the entire year as a period.

• tänään = today

  • adverb, not clearly case-marked like a regular noun
  • refers to only this day.

So tänä vuonna is about the whole year’s time span, while tänään is about just one day.

Are there other common time expressions built like tänä vuonna?

Yes, this “tänä + [noun in essive]” pattern is very common for time expressions:

• tänä aamuna – this morning
• tänä iltana – this evening
• tänä kesänä – this summer
• tänä talvena – this winter
• tänä viikonloppuna – this weekend

They all literally mean “in this [time period]”, just like tänä vuonna = “in this year”.