Aamulla sade on kevyt, mutta iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky.

In the morning the rain is light, but in the afternoon a storm begins.

Breakdown of Aamulla sade on kevyt, mutta iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky.

• olla: to be
• mutta: but
• aamu: the morning
• -lla: in
• iltapäivä: the afternoon
• alkaa: to begin
• kevyt: light
• -llä: in
• sade: the rain
• myrsky: the storm

Questions & Answers about Aamulla sade on kevyt, mutta iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky.

Why do aamulla and iltapäivällä end in -lla / -llä instead of just aamu and iltapäivä?

The ending -lla / -llä is the adessive case. One of its common uses is to express time, especially broad parts of the day:

• aamu → aamulla = in the morning
• päivä → päivällä = in the daytime
• ilta → illalla = in the evening
• yö → yöllä = at night
• iltapäivä → iltapäivällä = in the afternoon

So:

• Aamulla = in the morning
• iltapäivällä = in the afternoon

The bare forms aamu, iltapäivä by themselves would not work as time expressions here; you need the case ending.

Because of vowel harmony, aamu takes -lla (back vowels a, u) and iltapäivä takes -llä (front vowel ä).

Could I say aamuna or aamussa instead of aamulla?

In everyday Finnish, for a general time like this, you use aamulla, not aamuna or aamussa.

• aamuna (essive case) literally means as a morning / on a (certain) morning.
  You might see it in expressions like:

  • Eräänä aamuna = one morning (in a story) But Aamuna sade on kevyt sounds odd as a generic statement.

• aamussa (inessive case, in the morning) is not normally used for time in modern standard language. You might see something like it in poetry, but not here.

So for normal neutral Finnish, use:

• Aamulla sade on kevyt… = In the morning the rain is light…

Why is there no word like “the” or “a” before sade and myrsky?

Finnish does not have articles (a / an / the) at all.

• sade can mean rain / the rain / a rain, depending on context.
• myrsky can mean storm / the storm / a storm, again depending on context.

Here, from the English point of view, we understand it as:

• sade → the rain (the rain that is falling that morning)
• myrsky → a storm or the storm (that starts in the afternoon)

Finnish leaves this to context; there is no separate word you have to add.

Why is it sade on kevyt and not sade on kevyttä or something else?

In sade on kevyt, the structure is:

• sade – subject (nominative)
• on – verb to be
• kevyt – predicative adjective in nominative

So literally: “rain is light” (describing this particular rain event as light).

About kevyttä:

• kevyttä is the partitive form of kevyt.
• With mass or uncountable nouns, Finnish often allows both:
  • Vesi on kylmää. = The water is cold. (partitive)
  • Vesi on kylmä. = The water is cold. (nominative, slightly more “categorical”)

With sade, you can in principle say Sade on kevyttä, but that leans more toward describing the rain as a substance (its density, “lightness” as stuff) and is less common in everyday speech.

In the given sentence, Sade on kevyt is natural and treats the rain more as an event / type of rain: the kind of rain is light.

Why does the second clause say iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky instead of iltapäivällä myrsky alkaa?

Both word orders are grammatically correct:

• Iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky.
• Iltapäivällä myrsky alkaa.

The difference is nuance:

• Iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky puts the verb before the subject. This often makes the subject “myrsky” feel more like new or important information, and the sentence flows naturally as:

  • In the afternoon, a storm begins (that’s the new development).

• Iltapäivällä myrsky alkaa is closer to “In the afternoon, the storm begins,” with a bit more focus on “the storm” itself as known information.

Finnish word order is flexible. Time expressions like iltapäivällä commonly come first, and then you can choose V–S (alkaa myrsky) or S–V (myrsky alkaa) depending on emphasis. Here, alkaa myrsky nicely highlights the start of the storm as the key event.

Is myrsky the subject even though it comes after the verb alkaa?

Yes. In iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky:

• alkaa is 3rd person singular (it agrees with a singular subject).
• myrsky (storm) is that subject, just placed after the verb.

Subject–verb–object order is not mandatory in Finnish; subjects can follow the verb, especially when:

• The time or place is put at the beginning, and
• The subject is new information coming later in the clause.

So structurally it is:

• [Iltapäivällä] [alkaa] [myrsky].
• [In the afternoon] [begins] [a storm].

What tense are on and alkaa in? The English translation sounds like future.

Both on and alkaa are in the present tense.

Finnish usually does not have a separate grammatical future tense. Instead, it uses the present tense and lets context show whether it is present or future.

So:

• Aamulla sade on kevyt
  literally: In the morning the rain is light
  In many contexts, this is understood as a general statement or a future schedule (e.g. weather forecast).

• Iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky
  literally: In the afternoon a storm begins
  Again, often understood as future (later that day).

If needed, Finnish can add adverbs like huomenna (tomorrow), sitten (then), or use constructions like tulee satamaan for clearer future meaning, but the plain present is very common.

Why is iltapäivällä written as one word? Could it be ilta päivällä?

Iltapäivä is a compound noun:

• ilta = evening
• päivä = day
• iltapäivä = afternoon (literally evening-day)

In Finnish, compounds are normally written as a single word. Then you just add the case ending to the whole compound:

• iltapäivä (basic form)
• iltapäivällä (adessive) = in the afternoon

Writing ilta päivällä would be read as two separate words (ilta and päivällä) and would not mean “in the afternoon”; it would just sound wrong in this context.

Why is mutta used here instead of ja?

• mutta = but (contrast)
• ja = and (addition)

The sentence contrasts the morning and the afternoon:

• In the morning, the rain is light.
• But in the afternoon, a storm begins.

So mutta shows the change / opposition between the two situations. If you used ja:

• Aamulla sade on kevyt, ja iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky.

it would sound more like two neutral facts placed side by side, with weaker contrast. Mutta is the natural choice because the afternoon weather is very different from the morning weather.

Could I say Aamulla sade on kevyt, mutta iltapäivällä myrsky alkaa instead? Does it change the meaning?

Yes, that sentence is also correct Finnish:

• Aamulla sade on kevyt, mutta iltapäivällä myrsky alkaa.

Meaning-wise, it is essentially the same: light rain in the morning, storm begins in the afternoon.

The nuance:

• …iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky puts a bit more focus on the event of beginning and treats myrsky as “new” at the end.
• …iltapäivällä myrsky alkaa keeps myrsky closer to the center of the clause, a bit more like “the storm (we are talking about) starts”.

For everyday use, both are fine; the difference is subtle and mostly about emphasis / rhythm.

What is the difference between sade on kevyt and sataa kevyesti?

They describe similar weather but with different structures:

• sade on kevyt
  = the rain is light

  • sade is a noun (rain).
  • kevyt is an adjective (light).
  • You are talking about the rain as a thing/event and describing its quality.

• sataa kevyesti
  = it rains lightly

  • sataa is a verb meaning it rains / it is raining.
  • kevyesti is an adverb (lightly).
  • You are talking about the action of raining and how it happens.

You could also say:

• Aamulla sataa kevyesti, mutta iltapäivällä alkaa myrsky.

That would be perfectly natural and means almost the same as the original, but focuses slightly more on the process of raining rather than “the rain” as an object.