Learn Hardcore Finnish: Potilas saa lääkkeeksi yhden tabletin aamulla ja toisen illalla. - The patient gets as medicine one pill in the morning and another in the evening.

Potilas – patient
saa – gets / receives / is given
lääkkeeksi – as medicine (in the translative case, -ksi)
yhden – one (genitive form of yksi)
tabletin – tablet (genitive form of tabletti)
aamulla – in the morning (adessive case, -lla)
ja – and
toisen – another one / the second one (genitive of toinen, with tabletin understood)
illalla – in the evening (adessive case, -lla)

So, a very literal rendering is:

“The patient gets as medicine one tablet in the morning and (another) one in the evening.”

What exactly does saa mean here? Is it “gets”, “takes”, or “is allowed to take”?

The verb saada is quite flexible. Its main meanings are:

to get / receive – Potilas saa lääkkeen = The patient receives a medicine.
to be given (passive-like meaning) – in instructions, this is common: Potilas saa… = The patient is to be given…
to be allowed to (permission) – Potilas saa lähteä = The patient may leave / is allowed to leave.

In medical instructions like this, saa usually combines the ideas “is to receive / is to be given / may have”. English often translates it with:

The patient is given one tablet…
The patient is to receive one tablet…
The patient may take one tablet… (if the emphasis is on permission)

It does not mean that the patient is physically taking it by their own action; that would be ottaa (to take):
Potilas ottaa yhden tabletin aamulla – The patient takes one tablet in the morning.

Why is lääkkeeksi in that form with -ksi? What is this ending?

The ending -ksi is the translative case in Finnish. It often expresses:

a resulting state or role: what something becomes or is used as.

In lääkkeeksi, we have:

lääke (medicine) → lääkkeeksi (to be / as medicine)

With saada, antaa, ottaa, etc., the translative can mean “as X”:

Saamme tämän lääkkeeksi. – We get this as medicine.
Lääkäri antoi tabletin lääkkeeksi. – The doctor gave the tablet as a medicine.
Otan tämän kipuun lääkkeeksi. – I take this as medicine for the pain.

So saa lääkkeeksi here is literally “gets [it] as medicine” – i.e. the tablet’s role is that it is being used as medicine, not e.g. as candy.

What is the difference between lääkkeeksi, lääkkeenä, and lääkettä?

All come from lääke (medicine), but they use different cases and have different nuances:

lääkkeeksi – translative (-ksi)
- as medicine / to be medicine / for use as medicine
- Focus on becoming / being used as that thing.
- Annan tämän lääkkeeksi. – I give this as medicine.
lääkkeenä – essive (-na)
- as medicine, in the role of medicine / in the state of medicine, often more static or descriptive.
- Tätä kasvia on käytetty lääkkeenä. – This plant has been used as a medicine.
lääkettä – partitive singular
- some medicine / medicine (indefinite amount)
- Tarvitsen lääkettä. – I need some medicine.

In this sentence, the idea is “as a medicine”, so lääkkeeksi (translative) fits best.

Why is it yhden tabletin and not yksi tabletti?

This is about object case in Finnish.

yksi tabletti is the basic counting form: one tablet.
But as a total object of a completed action (the patient gets exactly one whole tablet), Finnish uses the genitive form of the object.

So:

yksi → yhden (genitive of one)
tabletti → tabletin (genitive of tablet)

Together they form a genitive noun phrase: yhden tabletin.

Compare:

Otan yhden tabletin. – I take one tablet (all of it).
Otan tablettia. – I’m taking (some) tablet / I’m in the process of taking a tablet (partitive, ongoing or incomplete).

Here, the instruction is about a complete, countable dose (one whole tablet), so yhden tabletin as a total object is natural.

Are yksi and yhden the same word? When do I use which?

Yes, they are forms of the same numeral yksi (one), just in different cases:

yksi – nominative (dictionary form)
- Yksi tabletti riittää. – One tablet is enough.
yhden – genitive
- Used for possessive and many object uses:
  - yhden tabletin – of one tablet / one tablet (as object)
  - yhden potilaan lääkitys – one patient’s medication

In yhden tabletin, both yhden and tabletin are in the genitive, because the whole phrase is a genitive object.

Why is it just toisen after ja, without repeating tabletin?

Finnish, like English, often omits repeated nouns when the meaning is clear.

The full version would be:

…yhden tabletin aamulla ja toisen tabletin illalla.
– one tablet in the morning and another tablet in the evening.

But since tabletin is already established, you can naturally shorten it to:

…yhden tabletin aamulla ja toisen illalla.

Here toisen is the genitive of toinen (another, the other, second), and tabletin is simply understood from context.

What case are aamulla and illalla in, and what nuance do they have?

Both aamulla (in the morning) and illalla (in the evening) are in the adessive case (-lla/-llä).

For times of day, the adessive often corresponds to English “in the …”:

aamu → aamulla – in the morning
päivä → päivällä – in the daytime / during the day
ilta → illalla – in the evening
yö → yöllä – at night

So aamulla and illalla here simply specify when the tablets are given.

Note that aamulla usually means on (a) morning / in the morning (generally), not a specific calendar date. For a specific morning as an event you might see aamuna (essive), but that is much more context‑dependent and less common in basic dosage instructions.

Could the word order be different, like Aamulla potilas saa lääkkeeksi yhden tabletin…?

Yes. Finnish word order is fairly flexible, and you can move the time phrases for emphasis:

Potilas saa lääkkeeksi yhden tabletin aamulla ja toisen illalla.
– Neutral, matter-of-fact.
Aamulla potilas saa lääkkeeksi yhden tabletin ja illalla toisen.
– Slight emphasis on the timing (In the morning, the patient gets…).

The core structure (Potilas saa lääkkeeksi yhden tabletin) remains the same; you just front aamulla or illalla if you want to highlight the time. The original order is perfectly natural as neutral instruction language.

How would I say “The patient takes one tablet in the morning and another in the evening” (focusing on the patient’s own action)?

Use ottaa (to take) instead of saada (to get / be given). The rest is very similar:

Potilas ottaa yhden tabletin aamulla ja toisen illalla.
– The patient takes one tablet in the morning and another in the evening.

Compare the meanings:

Potilas saa yhden tabletin… – The tablet is given to the patient (or prescribed).
Potilas ottaa yhden tabletin… – The patient takes the tablet (swallows it).

Does Potilas mean “the patient” or “a patient” or “patients in general”? There’s no article.

Finnish has no articles (a/an, the), so potilas by itself can map to several English possibilities, depending on context:

a patient – introducing some patient:
- Potilas saa lääkkeen. – A patient receives the medicine.
the patient – a specific, known patient (very common in medical text):
- In dosage instructions, Potilas saa… is usually The patient is given… (the one under discussion).
patients in general – generic statement:
- Potilas saa lääkkeeksi… can also be understood as A patient (in this situation) is to be given… / Patients are given….

In medical instructions, English often prefers “The patient” or “The patient shall be given…”, while Finnish just uses Potilas with no article.

If there were more tablets, how would the forms change, e.g. “two tablets in the morning and three in the evening”?

With numbers 2 and up, Finnish uses the partitive singular of the noun after the numeral:

kaksi tablettia – two tablets
kolme tablettia – three tablets

So your sentence would be:

Potilas saa lääkkeeksi kaksi tablettia aamulla ja kolme illalla.
– The patient is given two tablets in the morning and three in the evening.

Notice:

After kaksi, kolme, neljä…, etc., tabletti becomes tablettia (partitive).
After yksi, you stay in singular and follow object-case rules (yhden tabletin, as in the original sentence).