Illalla irrotan laturin seinästä.

In the evening I unplug the charger from the wall.

Breakdown of Illalla irrotan laturin seinästä.

• minä: I
• -sta: from
• illalla: in the evening
• seinä: the wall
• laturi: the charger
• irrottaa: to unplug

Questions & Answers about Illalla irrotan laturin seinästä.

What does illalla literally mean, and why is it not just ilta?

Ilta means evening.

Illalla is ilta + the adessive ending -lla, so it literally means “in the evening / at evening time.”

In Finnish, times of day often take -lla/-llä to mean “at that time”:

• aamulla – in the morning
• päivällä – in the daytime
• illalla – in the evening
• yöllä – at night

So illalla irrotan… = “In the evening I (will) unplug…”

Why does the sentence start with Illalla? Could it go somewhere else?

Starting with Illalla puts emphasis on when the action happens. This is very natural in Finnish:

• Illalla irrotan laturin seinästä. – In the evening I’ll unplug the charger from the wall. (neutral)
• Irrotan laturin seinästä illalla. – I’ll unplug the charger from the wall in the evening. (focus slightly more on the action, time added at the end)

Both are grammatically correct. Finnish word order is fairly flexible, and putting the time expression first is common and sounds natural.

What is the difference between illalla, tänä iltana, and iltaisin?

All involve evening, but they’re used differently:

• illalla – in the evening (later today)
  
  • Illalla irrotan laturin. – This evening I will unplug the charger.
• tänä iltana – this evening, a bit more explicit, often slightly more “pointed” or emphatic
  
  • Tänä iltana irrotan laturin. – This evening (not some other evening) I’ll unplug the charger.
• iltaisin – in the evenings / every evening / usually in the evening (habit)
  
  • Irrotan laturin iltaisin. – I unplug the charger in the evenings (as a routine).

So illalla here usually refers to this coming evening once, not a repeated habit.

What is irrotan exactly? Which verb is it from and what form is it?

Irrotan is the 1st person singular present tense of the verb irrottaa.

• irrottaa – to detach, to disconnect, to loosen, to unplug
• minä irrotan – I unplug / I detach

Conjugation example (present):

• minä irrotan
• sinä irrotat
• hän irrottaa
• me irrotamme
• te irrotatte
• he irrottavat

In the sentence, irrotan means “I unplug / I will unplug” (Finnish present often covers future meaning).

Is there a difference between irrotan laturin and otan laturin irti?

Both can be used for unplugging/taking something off, but there are nuances:

• irrotan laturin (seinästä) – a bit more formal/technical; literally “I detach/disconnect the charger (from the wall).”
• otan laturin irti (seinästä) – more everyday-sounding; literally “I take the charger off/out (from the wall).”

In ordinary speech, otan laturin irti seinästä might be more common, but irrotan laturin seinästä is perfectly natural and clear.

Why is laturin in the -n form (genitive) and not laturia?

Laturin is the genitive singular of laturi (“charger”).
In this sentence, laturin is a total object: you unplug the whole charger, and the action is seen as completed.

Very simplified rule of thumb:

• Genitive object (-n) → whole thing, complete event
  
  • Irrotan laturin. – I will unplug the whole charger (once, completely).
• Partitive object (-a/-ä, etc.) → incomplete, ongoing, or only part of something
  
  • Irrotan laturia. – I’m (in the process of) unplugging a charger / some charger (sounds odd here, like an ongoing process, not a single completed act).

So laturin is used because unplugging the charger is a bounded, complete action.

What does laturi mean exactly? Is it specifically for phone chargers?

Laturi means charger (a device that charges something). It can refer to:

• a phone charger
• a laptop charger
• a battery charger, etc.

Context usually tells you which type of charger is meant. On its own laturi is neutral: just “a charger”.

What case is seinästä, and what does it literally mean?

Seinästä is the elative case of seinä (wall).

• seinä – wall
• seinästä – from (inside) the wall / out of the wall

The elative ending is -sta / -stä and usually means “from inside something” or “out of something”:

• talosta – from the house
• kaupasta – from the shop
• seinästä – from the wall

In this context, the electrical outlet is in the wall, so you unplug the charger from the wall → seinästä.

Why seinästä and not seinältä?

Both are valid cases, but they mean different things:

• seinässä / seinästä (inessive/elative) – in the wall / from the wall
  Used when something is physically in the wall, like an electrical socket.
• seinällä / seinältä (adessive/ablative) – on the wall / off the wall
  Used when something is on the surface of the wall, like a poster.

Because a power socket is in the wall, unplugging something from it is naturally seinästä (from the wall), not seinältä (off the wall surface).

Is seinästä a kind of preposition or adverb?

No. Seinästä is still a noun, just in a special case form (elative). Finnish often uses case endings on nouns instead of prepositions.

Grammatically:

• seinä = noun, nominative
• seinästä = the same noun, elative case, functioning as an adverbial of place (“from the wall”).

So where English uses “from the wall” with a preposition, Finnish expresses the same idea inside the noun with the ending -stä.

Where is the word “I” in the sentence? Why is minä not written?

In Finnish, the subject pronoun is often dropped, because it is built into the verb ending.

• irrotan already tells you it’s “I (minä) unplug”:
  • -n at the end → 1st person singular (“I”).

You can say:

• Illalla minä irrotan laturin seinästä.

This is grammatically correct but often adds emphasis on “I” (“I will unplug it (not someone else)”).
In neutral sentences, Finns typically omit minä unless they want to stress it.

Why is the Finnish present tense irrotan translated as “I will unplug” and not just “I unplug”?

Finnish does not have a separate future tense. The present tense often covers both:

• current actions:
  
  • Irrotan laturin nyt. – I’m unplugging the charger now.
• future actions (with a time expression):
  
  • Illalla irrotan laturin. – I will unplug the charger in the evening.

The time word illalla shows that this is about the future, so the natural English translation is “I will unplug”.

There is no word for “my” in the sentence. How would you say “my charger” or “from my wall”?

Finnish often uses possessive suffixes instead of separate words like “my”.

• my charger:
  • laturini – charger-my
  • Illalla irrotan laturini seinästä. – In the evening I’ll unplug my charger from the wall.
• from my wall:
  • seinästäni – from-my-wall
  • Illalla irrotan laturin seinästäni. – In the evening I’ll unplug the charger from my wall.

You can also use minun + a normal noun:

• minun laturini – my charger
• minun seinästäni – from my wall

But often just the suffix (-ni) is enough and sounds more natural in simple contexts.

How do you pronounce irrotan and laturin? Where is the stress?

In Finnish, stress is always on the first syllable of a word.

• irrotan → IR-ro-tan
  • rr is a long, trilled r; you hold it slightly longer than in English “r”.
• laturin → LA-tu-rin

Every vowel is clearly pronounced, and there are no silent letters.