Learn Hardcore Finnish: Minusta tuntuu, että seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa, mutta hän on silti onnellinen. - I feel that the relationship takes her/his time, but she/he is still happy.

So the structure is impersonal, similar to English “It feels to me that…” rather than “I feel that…”. Finnish very often expresses sensations and subjective impressions with these impersonal constructions:

Minusta tuntuu, että… = It feels to me that…
Minusta vaikuttaa, että… = It seems to me that…
Minusta on outoa, että… = It is strange to me that…

You can say Minä tunnen, että…, but it is much less common and sounds more like “I sense / I feel emotionally that…”. For everyday opinions and impressions, Minusta tuntuu, että… is the natural choice.

Why is Minusta in the -sta form? What does that case do here?

Minusta is elative case: “from me / out of me”. In expressions of opinion or sensation, Finnish often puts the experiencer in elative:

Minusta tuntuu, että… = It feels to me that…
Minusta se on hyvä idea. = I think it’s a good idea. (literally “From me it is a good idea.”)
Minusta se näyttää hauskalta. = It looks fun to me.

So the -sta here doesn’t mean physical movement out of something; it marks the source of the feeling or opinion. You can think of it as “from my point of view”.

What is the difference between Minusta tuntuu, että… and Minun mielestäni…?

Both express an opinion, but they have slightly different flavors:

Minusta tuntuu, että seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa…
= I feel that the relationship takes time from him/her…
More emotional / intuitive, like a personal impression.
Minun mielestäni seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa…
= In my opinion the relationship takes time from him/her…
Sounds like a considered opinion, a thought-out viewpoint.

In everyday speech they overlap a lot, and both can often be translated as “I think that…”.
Style notes:

Minusta tuntuu, että… is slightly more colloquial / subjective.
Minun mielestäni… is more neutral and explicit about “my opinion”.

What does seurustelu mean exactly? Is it just “dating”?

Seurustelu is a noun meaning roughly “being in a (romantic) relationship” or “dating (someone steadily)”.

seurustella = to be in a romantic relationship / to date (steadily)
- He seurustelevat. = They are in a relationship / they are dating.
seurustelu = the activity or state itself
- Seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa. = Being in a relationship takes time from him/her.

It usually implies a more or less stable romantic relationship, not casual dates with different people. So it’s closer to “being in a relationship” than just “going on dates”.

Why is seurustelu (a noun) used instead of the verb seurustella?

The Finnish sentence talks about the activity as a whole:

seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa
Literally: the being-in-a-relationship takes time from him/her.

To do that, Finnish often uses a noun for the activity (here seurustelu) as the subject of the sentence. English often uses a gerund (“dating takes time”), but grammatically this Finnish structure is very normal:

Lukeminen vie aikaa. = Reading takes time.
Työskentely vie voimia. = Working takes energy.
Seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa. = Being in a relationship takes time from him/her.

If you tried to use the verb directly (seurusteleminen vie häneltä aikaa), it would still be correct, but seurustelu is simpler and more idiomatic here.

Why is it vie häneltä aikaa and not something like ottaa häneltä aikaa?

The verb viedä literally means “to take, to carry (away)”, and in this pattern it means:

viedä joltakulta jotakin = to take something away from someone / to cost someone something (time, money, energy)

So:

seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa
= the relationship takes time from him/her / costs him/her time.

You will see this pattern often:

Tämä työ vie minulta paljon aikaa. = This work takes a lot of my time.
Matka vei meiltä koko päivän. = The trip took the whole day from us.

You could say ottaa aikaa (“takes time”) but joltakulta ottaa aikaa is less common than joltakulta vie aikaa. Vie häneltä aikaa is the most natural phrasing for “takes time away from him/her”.

Why is it häneltä and not hänelle or hänestä?

Häneltä is the ablative case, which often means “from someone/something”. The pattern here is:

viedä jotakin joltakin = to take something from someone

So:

seurustelu = the thing doing the taking (subject)
vie = takes
häneltä = from him/her (ablative)
aikaa = time (object, partitive)

Compare:

Otin kirjan häneltä. = I took the book from him/her.
Se vie minulta paljon aikaa. = It takes a lot of time from me.

Case contrasts:

häneltä = from him/her (ablative, used with viedä, ottaa etc.)
hänelle = to him/her (allative)
hänestä = from inside/about him/her (elative; used in “about opinions”, e.g. hänestä se on hyvä = “in his/her opinion it’s good”).

So häneltä is exactly what you’d expect with viedä (“to take from”).

Why is it aikaa and not aika?

Aikaa is the partitive form of aika (“time”). The partitive is used here because we’re talking about an unspecified amount of time, not a specific, countable unit:

seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa
= the relationship takes (some) time from him/her.

In general, you use the partitive:

for indefinite quantities:
- juon vettä = I drink (some) water
- minulla on rahaa = I have (some) money
- se vie aikaa = it takes (some) time
and often with verbs that express ongoing or incomplete actions.

If it were something like “It took an hour”, you would use a more specific expression:

Se vei tunnin. = It took an hour. (here tunnin is a total, bounded amount)

Is että necessary here? Can you say Minusta tuntuu seurustelu vie…?

In this sentence että is strongly preferred and basically required:

Minusta tuntuu, että seurustelu vie häneltä aikaa…

Finnish often uses että to introduce a content clause (a “that”-clause) after verbs of thinking, feeling, saying, etc.:

Luulen, että… = I think that…
Tiedän, että… = I know that…
Sanoin, että… = I said that…
Minusta tuntuu, että… = It feels to me that…

Without että, Minusta tuntuu seurustelu vie… sounds wrong or at best very awkward in standard Finnish. Spoken language sometimes drops että in some constructions, but not in this one.

Why are both mutta and silti used? Don’t they both mean “but / still”?

They play different roles:

mutta = “but”, a conjunction linking two clauses.
silti = “still / yet / nevertheless”, an adverb adding contrast inside the second clause.

So:

…, mutta hän on silti onnellinen.
= “…, but he/she is still happy (nevertheless).”

You could say just:

…, mutta hän on onnellinen.
= “…, but he/she is happy.”

That is correct, but silti emphasizes the contrast:
Even though the relationship takes time, he/she is nevertheless happy.

So mutta connects the clauses; silti strengthens the idea that the happiness is somewhat unexpected given the first clause.

Could we say Silti hän on onnellinen instead of hän on silti onnellinen? Does the word order matter?

Both are grammatically correct but the emphasis changes slightly.

…, mutta hän on silti onnellinen.
Neutral word order. Focus is more on “still happy” as new information.
…, mutta silti hän on onnellinen.
Puts silti earlier, making the contrast more prominent:
“…but still, he/she is happy.” (almost like English “but still, he’s happy.”)

In everyday speech, hän on silti onnellinen is more typical and neutral. Moving silti to the front adds a bit of rhetorical emphasis.

What is the nuance of onnellinen compared to iloinen?

Both can be translated as “happy”, but they are not identical:

onnellinen
- More about deep, lasting happiness or life satisfaction.
- Hän on onnellinen. = He/She is (a) happy (person) / content with life.
iloinen
- More about a cheerful mood, being glad or pleased.
- Hän on iloinen. = He/She is cheerful / in a good mood.

In this sentence, hän on silti onnellinen suggests that despite the time cost, the relationship makes him/her genuinely happy in a deeper sense, not just momentarily cheerful. If you said iloinen, it would sound more like “he/she is still in a good mood”, which is weaker.

Are the verbs all present tense here? Could this also refer to a general or habitual situation?

Yes, both verbs are in the present tense:

tuntuu (from tuntua) = feels
vie (from viedä) = takes
on (from olla) = is

Finnish present tense is used both for:

Right now / current situation
- Right now, I feel that the relationship is taking time, but he/she is still happy.
General or habitual truths
- In general, I feel that being in a relationship takes time from him/her, but he/she (nevertheless) is a happy person.

Context decides which one is intended. There is no special “present continuous” form in Finnish; the same present tense covers “is taking / takes”. If you changed to past:

Minusta tuntui, että seurustelu vei häneltä aikaa, mutta hän oli silti onnellinen.
= I felt that the relationship took time from him/her, but he/she was still happy.