Learn Hardcore Finnish: Selässä on kipeä kohta. - There is a sore spot in the back.

In this sentence, selässä is best understood as “on the back” (on someone’s back). Finnish often uses the inessive case for body parts to mean “on” that body part.

So Selässä on kipeä kohta = There is a sore spot on (the) back.

Why is it selässä and not selkässä?

Many Finnish nouns change slightly when you add case endings. Selkä is one of them.

The basic form is selkä (“back”).
The stem used with many endings is selä- (the ä vowel spreads and replaces the ä in -kä).

Then you add the inessive ending:

selä-
- -ssä → selässä

This type of change is common in Finnish; the dictionary form is not always the same as the stem used for cases. Another example:

nainen (“woman”) → stem naise- → naisessa (“in the woman”)

How do you know it means “on my back”? There is no word for “my” here.

Finnish often omits possessive words (my, your, his, etc.) when it is clear from context whose body we’re talking about. If you’re talking about your own pain, Selässä on kipeä kohta is naturally understood as:

There is a sore spot on my back.

If you want to be more explicit, you have a few options:

Selässäni on kipeä kohta.
→ There is a sore spot on my back. (with a possessive suffix -ni “my”)
Minun selässäni on kipeä kohta.
→ There is a sore spot on my back. (both minun and -ni, more emphatic)
Hänen selässään on kipeä kohta.
→ There is a sore spot on his/her back. (possessive suffix -än)

So the short form Selässä on kipeä kohta relies on context to supply “my / his / her / their”. That’s very typical in Finnish, especially with body parts.

Why is the verb on used here? Isn’t on just “is”?

Yes, on is the 3rd person singular form of the verb olla = “to be”. It can mean:

is (simple “to be”), or
be used in an existential sentence: “there is / there are”.

In Selässä on kipeä kohta, this is an existential sentence. Structurally, it’s:

[location (inessive)] + on + [new thing that exists there]

So:

Selässä – in/on the back
on – there is / is
kipeä kohta – a sore spot

Finnish doesn’t have a separate word like English “there” in “there is”. The verb on plus the word order expresses that idea.

Why is the word order “Selässä on kipeä kohta” and not “Kipeä kohta on selässä”?

Both orders are grammatically correct, but they feel different.

Selässä on kipeä kohta.
- This is a typical existential sentence: “On the back there is a sore spot.”
- It introduces the sore spot as new information, focusing on what is found in that location.
Kipeä kohta on selässä.
- This sounds more like “The sore spot is on the back.”
- It assumes “kipeä kohta” is already known, and now you are specifying where it is.

In everyday speech, if you’re just telling a doctor about a symptom, you’d naturally say:

Selässä on kipeä kohta.

Where is the word “a” as in “a sore spot”? Why isn’t it written in Finnish?

Finnish has no articles at all—no “a / an” and no “the”.

kipeä kohta can mean:
- a sore spot
- the sore spot
  depending on context.

In Selässä on kipeä kohta, this is new information and it’s a single, unspecified spot, so in natural English we translate it as “a sore spot”. But Finnish simply doesn’t mark that difference in the noun phrase.

What exactly does kipeä kohta mean? Could you use other words instead?

kipeä kohta consists of:

kipeä = sore, painful
kohta = spot, point, area

So together: “sore spot / painful area.”

You could use other combinations, depending on nuance:

kipeä paikka – also “sore spot / painful place” (quite similar)
arka kohta – “tender spot”
kipukohta – literally “pain-spot” (compound word, often more medical)

But kipeä kohta is a very natural, everyday way to say “a sore spot” on your body.

Why is kipeä kohta in the basic (nominative) form and not something like kipeää kohtaa?

In existential sentences like this, the thing that comes into existence in that place is usually in the nominative singular if it’s:

countable
whole / complete
and you’re not emphasizing its partial or ongoing nature.

Here, we’re talking about one whole sore spot, so:

Selässä on kipeä kohta.
→ nominative kipeä kohta.

You might see the partitive (kipeää kohtaa) in cases like:

Selässä on kipeää kohtaa.
This would sound more like “there is some sore area / some soreness in the back” — less about one precise spot, more about an indefinite or spread-out painful area.

So nominative (kipeä kohta) = one definite “unit” (a spot);
partitive (kipeää kohtaa) = some unspecified amount or part of something.

How is Selässä on kipeä kohta different from Selkä on kipeä and Selkää särkee?

All three talk about pain in the back, but they focus on different things:

Selässä on kipeä kohta.
- There is a sore spot on (my) back.
- Focus: a specific spot/area that hurts.
Selkä on kipeä.
- The back is sore.
- The whole back is generally painful, not just one point.
Selkää särkee.
- Literally: “(It) aches the back.” → My back aches / My back is hurting.
- A very common idiom for pain in a body part (using the partitive + verb pattern).
- Focuses on the experience of aching, not on a specific “spot”.

So you’d choose:

Selässä on kipeä kohta if you can point to one area.
Selkä on kipeä or Selkää särkee if the whole back aches.

How would I say “There are two sore spots on my back” using the same pattern?

You just make the subject plural and add a number:

Selässä on kaksi kipeää kohtaa.

Breakdown:

Selässä – in/on the back
on – there is / there are (the verb on doesn’t change form)
kaksi – two
kipeää kohtaa – “sore spots” in partitive plural after a number

Note the changes:

After a number (kaksi), the noun phrase (kipeä kohta) goes to partitive singular or partitive plural, depending on the word; here it’s kipeää kohtaa.
English changes the verb (is → are), but Finnish keeps on the same for both singular and plural.