Breakdown of Koko perhe istuu ruokapöydän ääressä sunnuntai-iltana.
Questions & Answers about Koko perhe istuu ruokapöydän ääressä sunnuntai-iltana.
Koko means “whole / entire”.
- koko perhe = the whole family / the entire family
- If you say just perhe istuu…, it means the family is sitting…, but it doesn’t explicitly say that every single member is there.
- In practice, context often makes it clear, so koko is added when you want to emphasize that everyone in the family is there, not just some of them.
In Finnish, perhe (family) is grammatically singular, even though it refers to a group. It works like English “family is” (BrE-style).
- koko perhe istuu = the whole family is sitting
- perhe: singular noun
- istuu: 3rd person singular of istua (to sit)
So Finnish matches the verb to the grammatical number (singular perhe) rather than to the number of people inside that group.
You can sometimes see koko perhe istuvat, but that’s less standard and sounds like you’re focusing on the individuals separately. The neutral, recommended form is koko perhe istuu.
Breakdown:
- ruoka = food
- pöytä = table
- ruokapöytä = dining table (compound noun)
- ruokapöydän = genitive singular of ruokapöytä → “of the dining table”
- ääressä = a postposition meaning “by, at, at the edge/side of”
So ruokapöydän ääressä literally is:
“at the side of the dining table” → natural English: “at the dining table”
Structure: [GENITIVE noun] + ääressä is a very common pattern:
- pöydän ääressä – at the table
- tulen ääressä – by the fire
- järven ääressä – by the lake
Postpositions like ääressä almost always take the genitive form of the noun before them.
- ruokapöytä → nominative
- ruokapöydän → genitive
- ruokapöydän ääressä → “by/at the dining table”
Compare:
- talon takana – behind the house (talo → talon
- takana)
- pöydän alla – under the table (pöytä → pöydän
- alla)
So ruokapöytä ääressä would be grammatically wrong; the genitive ruokapöydän is required.
- ruokapöydän ääressä = at the dining table, sitting or standing by it.
- ruokapöydässä = literally “in the dining table” (inessive, inside the table), which is usually nonsense in everyday contexts.
Finnish uses the inessive (-ssa/-ssä) for being inside something:
- talossa – in the house
- laatikossa – in the box
But with tables, people are normally at the table, not in it, so pöydän ääressä is the natural phrase.
Core meanings:
- ääressä – at / by, often implying you are using or engaging with the thing
- pöydän ääressä – at the table (e.g. eating, working)
- tietokoneen ääressä – at the computer (using it)
- luona – at someone’s place / near someone, more about location / being with
- ystävän luona – at a friend’s place
- vieressä – next to / beside, neutral physical proximity
- pöydän vieressä – next to the table (not necessarily using it)
So ruokapöydän ääressä highlights being seated at and using the dining table (eating, talking, etc.), which fits this sentence perfectly.
Sunnuntai-iltana is in the adessive singular.
- Base form: sunnuntai-ilta – Sunday evening
- Adessive: sunnuntai-iltana – on Sunday evening
The ending -na / -nä (adessive) is commonly used for time expressions with days and parts of the day:
- maanantaina – on Monday
- iltana – in the evening / on an evening
- viime kesänä – last summer
So sunnuntai-iltana means “on Sunday evening”.
Sunnuntai-ilta is a compound made from:
- sunnuntai = Sunday
- ilta = evening
In Finnish, day-name + part of day is normally written with a hyphen:
- maanantai-ilta – Monday evening
- lauantai-aamu – Saturday morning
So the base form is sunnuntai-ilta, and in the sentence, it appears in the adessive:
- sunnuntai-ilta → sunnuntai-iltana
Writing it as one word (sunnuntaiilta / sunnuntaiiltana) would look non‑standard or wrong.
Yes. Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and you can front different parts for emphasis or topic focus.
- Original: Koko perhe istuu ruokapöydän ääressä sunnuntai-iltana.
- Neutral: focus starts with who is doing the action.
- Variant: Sunnuntai-iltana koko perhe istuu ruokapöydän ääressä.
- Emphasizes when this happens; “As for Sunday evening, the whole family is at the table…”
Both are grammatically correct. The basic meaning stays the same; what changes is which element you highlight.
Literal, word-by-word style:
Koko perhe – the whole family
istuu – sits / is sitting
ruokapöydän ääressä – at the side of the dining table
sunnuntai-iltana – on Sunday evening
Literal-ish:
The whole family sits at the side of the dining table on Sunday evening.
Natural English:
The whole family is sitting at the dining table on Sunday evening.
Finnish doesn’t need a separate progressive form (is sitting); istuu covers both “sits” and “is sitting”, and context decides which sounds better in English.
Finnish has no articles (no “a/an” or “the”). Definiteness is expressed by:
- context
- possessive forms
- sometimes word order or demonstratives like tämä / se
In this sentence:
- koko perhe is “the whole family” because we naturally assume we’re talking about the speaker’s / some known family.
- ruokapöydän is “(the) dining table’s” / “the dining table”, again understood from context as the relevant, known table.
If you needed to make it extra explicit, you might say:
- koko meidän perheemme – our whole family
But usually koko perhe is enough.
Yes, and it would still be correct, just slightly different in nuance:
- koko perhe on ruokapöydän ääressä
- Literally: the whole family is at the dining table
- Focuses on location / being there.
- koko perhe istuu ruokapöydän ääressä
- Literally: the whole family sits / is sitting at the dining table
- Conveys both location and posture, gives a more vivid image of them sitting together.
Both are natural Finnish; istuu just paints a slightly clearer picture of what they are doing.