Questions & Answers about Puhelu alkaa pian.
Roughly, word-for-word:
- Puhelu = call (specifically a phone call)
- alkaa = begins / starts (3rd person singular present tense of alkaa)
- pian = soon
So the structure is simply Call – starts – soon. The English translation The call will start soon adds the and will, which Finnish does not need to mark separately.
Finnish has no articles at all: no a/an and no the. The bare noun puhelu can mean:
- a call
- the call
- sometimes even calls (in a generic sense, depending on context)
Which one is intended is determined entirely by context and what is already known in the conversation.
- If everyone already knows which call is meant (for example, the scheduled meeting call), Puhelu alkaa pian is understood as The call starts soon.
- If it is new information out of the blue, it could be understood as A call is starting soon.
In short: Finnish does not grammatically distinguish a vs the; you infer it from the situation.
Alkaa is the basic (dictionary) form of the verb: the infinitive. In the sentence Puhelu alkaa pian, it appears as the 3rd person singular present indicative, which happens to look the same as the infinitive for this verb type.
Conjugation of alkaa in the present tense:
- minä alan – I start
- sinä alat – you start (singular)
- hän / se alkaa – he / she / it starts
- me alamme – we start
- te alatte – you start (plural / formal)
- he / ne alkavat – they start
Because puhelu is a single thing (a call), the verb must be 3rd person singular: alkaa.
Finnish has no separate future tense. The present tense is used for:
- things happening right now
- things happening in the near or definite future
So:
- Puhelu alkaa pian = The call starts soon / The call will start soon
- Lähden huomenna = I (will) leave tomorrow
The future meaning is usually clear from context and from time expressions such as pian (soon), huomenna (tomorrow), ensi viikolla (next week), and so on.
Alkaa and aloittaa are related but not interchangeable.
- alkaa = to begin, to start (intransitive: something starts by itself)
- Puhelu alkaa pian. – The call starts soon.
- aloittaa = to begin something, to start something (transitive: someone starts something)
- Opettaja aloittaa puhelun pian. – The teacher will start the call soon.
In Puhelu alkaa pian, the call itself is starting; there is no explicit agent who starts it. That requires alkaa, not aloittaa.
Puhelu aloittaa pian would be ungrammatical in standard Finnish for this meaning.
In this sentence, puhelu is the subject of the sentence:
- Puhelu (subject)
- alkaa (verb)
- pian (adverb)
Subjects in simple sentences normally appear in the nominative case, which is the basic form without endings. So puhelu is nominative.
Other cases would change the meaning:
- puhelun – genitive (e.g. puhelun alku = the beginning of the call)
- puhelua – partitive (e.g. odotan puhelua = I am waiting for a call)
Because here we are just saying that the call is starting, nominative puhelu is required.
Yes, Finnish word order is more flexible than English, and both of these are correct:
- Puhelu alkaa pian.
- Pian puhelu alkaa.
The basic meaning is the same: the call will start soon. The difference is in emphasis / what you bring to the front:
- Puhelu alkaa pian. – neutral; focus on the fact that the call is starting; pian is just extra information.
- Pian puhelu alkaa. – puts extra emphasis on pian (soon), a bit like saying Soon, the call will start in English.
Other orders like Puhelu pian alkaa are possible but more marked, and might sound poetic or emphatic, not neutral everyday speech.
Yes, there are several options, and they have slightly different feels:
- pian – soon, relatively neutral; could be minutes, or just before long
- Puhelu alkaa pian. – The call will start soon.
- kohta – soon / in a moment; often felt as a bit more immediate in everyday speech
- Puhelu alkaa kohta. – The call is starting in a moment.
- ihan pian – very soon, quite soon
- Puhelu alkaa ihan pian. – The call will start very soon.
The differences are subtle and context-dependent. In many situations, pian and kohta can both be translated as soon, with kohta often sounding a bit more like in just a moment.
Puhelu usually refers to a phone call or a call via some communication system:
- puhelin = telephone
- puhelu = telephone call
Soitto is a more general act of calling / ringing / playing (an instrument), depending on context:
- soittaa puhelimella – to call by phone
- soitto – a call (the act of calling), or a ring, or playing music
- Kiitos soitosta. – Thanks for the call.
- Odotan soittoa. – I am waiting for a call.
In many everyday phone-related contexts, puhelu and soitto overlap, but:
- Puhelu alkaa pian. – natural if you mean a planned or technical call session begins.
- Soitto alkaa pian. – more likely to be understood as the (music) performance starts soon, unless context is clearly about phones.
So puhelu is the safer, clearer choice for a phone call.
You can say Se alkaa pian, but it changes the structure slightly.
- Puhelu alkaa pian. – The call starts soon. (The subject noun is stated.)
- Se alkaa pian. – It starts soon. (The subject is a pronoun se, referring to something mentioned earlier.)
In conversation, you might say:
- Puhelu on kello kolme. – The call is at three.
- Se alkaa pian. – It will start soon.
In the original sentence, we are introducing or mentioning the call directly, so using the noun puhelu as the subject is natural. Pronouns like se are used when the referent is clear from previous context and you don’t want to repeat the noun.
Finnish negation uses a special verb ei plus a form of the main verb. For 3rd person singular present:
- ei
- alkaa → ei ala
So:
- Puhelu alkaa pian. – The call will start soon.
- Puhelu ei ala pian. – The call will not start soon.
Structure:
- Puhelu – subject
- ei – negation verb (3rd person singular)
- ala – main verb in its negative form
- pian – adverb
The word order is typically: subject – ei – verb – other elements.