Learn Hardcore Finnish: Laki on tärkeä asia. - The law is an important thing.

Laki on tärkeä asia. – The law is an important thing / Law is an important matter.
Tämä laki on tärkeä asia. – This law is an important thing. (now clearly definite because of tämä = this)
Yksi laki on erityisen tärkeä. – One law is especially important. (now clearly a law / one law)

So the sentence is correct without the or a; Finnish simply doesn’t use those words.

What is on doing here, and how is it related to olla?

on is the present tense, 3rd person singular form of the verb olla (to be). It corresponds to English is.

A tiny conjugation of olla in the present tense:

minä olen – I am
sinä olet – you are (singular)
hän on – he/she is
me olemme – we are
te olette – you are (plural/formal)
he ovat – they are

In Laki on tärkeä asia, the subject laki (law) is 3rd person singular, so the verb must be on (is).

Why are both laki and asia in what looks like a basic form? Are they in some case?

Yes, they are both in the nominative singular, which is the dictionary form.

In a sentence with olla (to be), the usual pattern is:

[Subject in nominative] + on + [predicate noun/adjective in nominative]

So:

laki – nominative singular (subject)
tärkeä asia – nominative singular (predicate: adjective + noun)

This is like saying in English: Law is [an] important thing. Finnish does not change case here; both sides of the on are in nominative when you equate them like this.

You generally do not say:

✗ Laki on tärkeän asian. (wrong here)
✗ Laki on tärkeää asiaa. (also wrong in this structure)

Those cases (genitive, partitive) are for other grammatical roles, not this simple A is B sentence.

Could you say Laki on tärkeää instead? What’s the difference from Laki on tärkeä asia?

You can say Laki on tärkeää, and it is natural Finnish, but the nuance is a bit different.

Laki on tärkeä asia.
Literally: Law is an important thing/matter.
– This presents law almost like a concrete “thing” and states that it is important. It’s slightly more “schoolbook” or explanatory.
Laki on tärkeää.
Literally: Law is important.
– Here tärkeää is in the partitive and functions like a general-quality predicate. The sentence talks about law in a broad, abstract sense: as a general principle, law is important.

In everyday speech, Laki on tärkeää or simply Laki on tärkeä is more common than explicitly saying tärkeä asia, unless you really want to emphasize it as a “thing” or a “matter” for discussion.

Why is tärkeä before asia? Could you also say Laki on asia tärkeä?

The normal word order in Finnish is:

adjective + noun

So:

tärkeä asia – an important thing
iso talo – a big house
vanha mies – an old man

Putting the adjective after the noun (asia tärkeä) is unusual and normally sounds poetic, archaic, or marked for special emphasis. In everyday neutral language you say:

Laki on tärkeä asia. (normal)
✗ Laki on asia tärkeä. (sounds off / poetic / not standard neutral)

You might occasionally see postposed adjectives in literature or rhetoric (e.g. onni suuri, kansa vapaa), but as a learner you should always place adjectives before the noun.

Does tärkeä have to agree with asia in any way?

Yes. In Finnish, adjectives generally agree with the noun in:

number (singular/plural)
case (nominative, genitive, partitive, etc.)

In this sentence:

asia is nominative singular → tärkeä is also nominative singular.
- tärkeä asia – an important thing.

Examples of agreement changes:

nominative plural:
- tärkeät asiat – important things
partitive singular:
- tärkeää asiaa – (of) an important thing (in some contexts)
inessive singular (in):
- tärkeässä asiassa – in an important matter

The ending on tärkeä will normally match the ending on asia, except in some special patterns where adjectives behave slightly differently; but as a general rule, yes, they agree.

Why does tärkeä end in ä and not a? What’s going on with the vowels?

This is because of vowel harmony, a key feature of Finnish.

Finnish vowels are divided into:

back vowels: a, o, u
front vowels: ä, ö, y
neutral vowels: e, i

A word usually contains either back vowels (a, o, u) or front vowels (ä, ö, y), plus neutral vowels (e, i).

The stem of tärkeä contains a front vowel ä, so suffixes and endings use front vowels too:

tärkeä (not ✗tärkea)
related forms: tärkeää, tärkeänä, tärkeässä, etc.

Similarly:

talo → talossa (back-vowel word: a, o → o in suffixes)
käsi → kädessä (front-vowel word: ä → ä in suffix)

So tärkeä must end in ä, not a, to respect vowel harmony.

Why is Laki capitalized? Is laki a proper noun?

laki (law) is not a proper noun. It’s capitalized here only because it is the first word of the sentence. In standard Finnish:

Common nouns like laki, asia, talo are written lowercase unless they start the sentence.
Proper nouns (names) like Suomi (Finland), Helsinki, Matti are capitalized wherever they appear.

So if laki appeared in the middle of a sentence, you’d write laki, not Laki:

Suomessa laki on tärkeä asia. – In Finland, law is an important thing.

Could the word order be Tärkeä asia on laki? Would that change the meaning?

Yes, you can say:

Tärkeä asia on laki.

Grammatically it’s fine, but the emphasis shifts.

Laki on tärkeä asia.
– You start from laki (law) and state that it is an important thing.
Tärkeä asia on laki.
– You start from tärkeä asia (an important thing) and then identify what that important thing is: laki.
– Roughly like saying: An important thing is law.

So the basic meaning is similar, but the second version sounds more like you are listing or picking out one important thing, and that thing happens to be law. In neutral context, Laki on tärkeä asia is more straightforward.

Why isn’t there an “it” like in English “It is an important thing”?

Finnish does not use a dummy subject it the way English does. The subject is usually a real word.

English:

The law is an important thing. (subject = the law)
It is an important thing. (dummy it, referring to something in context)

Finnish:

Laki on tärkeä asia. – The law is an important thing.
Se on tärkeä asia. – It is an important thing. (se refers to some specific law or thing already known in context)

But Finnish never uses something like an empty “it”; you always have either a meaningful subject (like laki) or you just omit it if the subject is clear from the verb (mainly in 1st and 2nd person: Olen väsynyt = I am tired).

How do you pronounce Laki on tärkeä asia? Where is the stress?

Pronunciation (very rough English-like approximation):

Laki – LAH-ki
on – on (like English on, but shorter)
tärkeä – TAIR-keh-ah (with Finnish r rolled or tapped; ä like a in English cat)
asia – AH-see-ah

In Finnish:

Stress is almost always on the first syllable of each word:
- LA-ki on TÄR-ke-ä A-si-a
Vowels are short and pure; each written vowel corresponds to one sound.
Consonants and vowels can be short or long (double letters), but here all are short.

So you rhythm it as four stressed beats at the start of each word: LAki | on | TÄRkeä | ASia.