Asia on nyt selvä minulle.

The matter is now clear to me.

Breakdown of Asia on nyt selvä minulle.

• olla: to be
• nyt: now
• asia: the matter
• minulle: me
• selvä: clear

Questions & Answers about Asia on nyt selvä minulle.

What is the most natural English translation of Asia on nyt selvä minulle?

The most natural translation is: “The matter is now clear to me.”

Depending on context, you might also translate it as:

• “I understand the issue now.”
• “Now I get it.”

But the structure of the Finnish sentence is closer to “The matter is now clear to me.” than to “I understand it.”

Why is it asia and not something like se asia or tämä asia? Don’t you need “the” or “this”?

Finnish doesn’t have articles like “a / an / the”, so asia can mean both “a matter” and “the matter”, depending on context.

• Asia on nyt selvä minulle.
  → In English: “The matter is now clear to me.” (because both speakers know what issue they’re talking about)

If you say se asia or tämä asia, you are making the reference more pointed:

• Se asia on nyt selvä minulle.
  → “That matter is now clear to me.” (the one we mentioned earlier, not some other one)

• Tämä asia on nyt selvä minulle.
  → “This matter is now clear to me.” (very specifically this one, often something just introduced or strongly highlighted)

In many real-life situations, plain asia is enough when context already makes it clear what you are talking about.

Why is minulle in the allative case (-lle)? Why not minä or minut?

Minulle is the allative form of minä and is often used to mean “to me / for me / as far as I am concerned”.

In this sentence:

• Asia – subject (“the matter”)
• on – verb (“is”)
• selvä – predicative adjective (“clear”)
• minulle – experiencer in allative (“to me”)

So the structure is literally:

• “The matter is now clear to me.”

This is a very common pattern in Finnish:

• Onko tämä selvä sinulle?
  → “Is this clear to you?”
• Tämä kirja on tärkeä minulle.
  → “This book is important to me.”

Using minä / minut would change the role of I / me in the sentence, and would not fit this pattern. If you want I as the grammatical subject, you say it differently:

• Ymmärrän asian nyt.
  → “I understand the matter now.”

Here minä is implied in the verb ymmärrän (“I understand”).

Can I say Minulle asia on nyt selvä instead? Is the word order flexible?

Yes, you can say:

• Minulle asia on nyt selvä.

The meaning is basically the same, but the emphasis shifts slightly:

• Asia on nyt selvä minulle.
  → Neutral; the starting point is asia (“the matter”).
• Minulle asia on nyt selvä.
  → Emphasizes minulle: “To me, the matter is now clear (even if it might not be clear to others).”

Finnish word order is relatively flexible. Some common variants and very rough nuance:

• Asia on minulle nyt selvä. – slight focus on minulle and nyt, quite neutral.
• Nyt asia on minulle selvä. – emphasises nyt (“now, as of this moment”).

All of these are grammatical; choice depends on what element you want to highlight.

Why is it selvä and not selvää here? I often see adjectives ending in -ä after on.

With being-type sentences (with olla = “to be”), Finnish uses two main patterns for the predicative adjective:

1. Nominative case (here: selvä)
2. Partitive case (here: selvää)

In a neutral, simple statement like “The matter is clear”, the nominative is the normal choice:

• Asia on selvä.
  → Complete, definite quality: “The matter is (clearly) clear.”

You see the partitive in situations like:

• Negation:

  • Asia ei ole selvä.
    → “The matter is not clear.” (predicate in nominative is also common in negation)
  • Asia ei ole selvää.
    → Also possible; can feel more “not at all clear / not in any sense clear.”

• Talking about something as a kind / amount / degree of a quality, or more incompletely:

  • Asia on minulle vähän epäselvää.
    → “The matter is a bit unclear to me.”

In your sentence, Asia on nyt selvä minulle is a straightforward “it is clear”, so selvä (nominative) is the natural form.

What is the difference between selvä and selkeä? Could I say Asia on nyt selkeä minulle?

Both selvä and selkeä can mean “clear”, but they have slightly different typical uses and nuances:

• selvä

  • very common, general “clear, obvious”
  • also means “sober” (not drunk) in other contexts
  • fits very well with understanding:
    
    • Asia on minulle selvä. – “The matter is clear to me.”

• selkeä

  • often “clear, distinct, easy to perceive / well structured”
  • very natural with writing, speech, design, layout:
    
    • Selkeä teksti. – “Clear text.”
    • Selkeä puhe. – “Clear speech.”

You can say Asia on nyt selkeä minulle, and people will understand. It just sounds slightly different, often more like “structured / well-defined” than “I mentally understand it now”.

For “I understand now”, selvä is the idiomatic choice:

• Asia on nyt selvä minulle.

Do I need the word nyt? How does the meaning change if I drop it?

You can drop nyt, and the sentence is still correct:

• Asia on selvä minulle.
  → “The matter is clear to me.”

Adding nyt emphasizes the timing: now (as opposed to earlier).

• Asia on nyt selvä minulle.
  → “The matter is now clear to me.” (implies it was not clear before)

So:

• Without nyt – timeless statement about your understanding.
• With nyt – contrast with the past; some change has happened.

What’s the difference between nyt and jo in this kind of sentence?

Both nyt and jo can appear in similar contexts, but they focus on slightly different things:

• nyt = “now” – focuses on the present moment, change compared to before.
• jo = “already” – focuses on the fact that something happened earlier than expected or earlier than some reference point.

Compare:

• Asia on nyt selvä minulle.
  → “The matter is now clear to me.” (it became clear at this point)

• Asia on jo selvä minulle.
  → “The matter is already clear to me.” (maybe earlier than someone expected; you’re stressing that you’ve understood it already)

Both are possible; which one you choose depends on what nuance you want.

Why is asia in the nominative case? Shouldn’t something be in partitive when talking about understanding?

Asia is the grammatical subject of the sentence, and by default subjects appear in the nominative case in Finnish:

• Asia on selvä. – “The matter is clear.”
• Kirja on kallis. – “The book is expensive.”

The verb here is olla (“to be”), and the structure is “subject + is + adjective + (to someone)”. The subject (asia) is not being measured as a quantity or partially affected; it just is something, so nominative is normal.

Partitive often appears when:

• you’re talking about an incomplete amount / process, or
• the verb is of a type that regularly takes partitive objects, or
• there is negation, etc.

Here we’re just stating a quality of a complete, definite thing (“the matter”), so asia stays nominative.

How would I turn Asia on nyt selvä minulle into a yes–no question?

For a yes–no question, Finnish typically puts the question clitic -ko / -kö on the verb:

• Onko asia nyt selvä minulle?
  → “Is the matter now clear to me?”

More commonly, if you’re asking someone else:

• Onko asia nyt selvä sinulle?
  → “Is the matter now clear to you?”

Word order can vary somewhat, but Onko + subject + …? is the standard pattern.

Is there a more direct way to say “I understand the matter now” in Finnish?

Yes. Asia on nyt selvä minulle is a very natural way, but if you want “I understand” as the grammatical subject, you can say:

• Ymmärrän asian nyt.
  → “I understand the matter now.”

Comparison:

• Asia on nyt selvä minulle.

  • literally: “The matter is now clear to me.”
  • focuses on the matter and its clarity.

• Ymmärrän asian nyt.

  • literally: “I understand the matter now.”
  • focuses on you and the act of understanding.

Both are idiomatic; which you choose depends on what you want to emphasize.

Is Asia on nyt selvä minulle formal, informal, or neutral? In what situations would it be used?

The sentence is neutral and suitable for both spoken and written Finnish.

You might use it:

• after someone explains something:
  
  • “Asia on nyt selvä minulle, kiitos selvennyksestä.”
    → “The matter is now clear to me, thanks for the clarification.”
• in professional / official contexts:
  
  • speaking with a teacher, a clerk, a colleague, etc.

In very casual speech, people might shorten or change it, for example:

• Nyt se on mulle selvä.
  → very colloquial: “Now it’s clear to me.”

But Asia on nyt selvä minulle itself is standard and widely applicable.