Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan sitä enemmän.

The cheese is quite cheap today, so I buy more of it.

Breakdown of Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan sitä enemmän.

• minä: I
• olla: to be
• tänään: today
• ostaa: to buy
• se: it
• joten: so
• enemmän: more
• melko: quite
• juusto: the cheese
• halpa: cheap

Questions & Answers about Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan sitä enemmän.

Why is halpaa used instead of halpa?

Halpaa is the partitive form of the adjective halpa (cheap). In sentences with olla (to be), the adjective can sometimes appear in the partitive instead of the nominative.

In Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, the idea is:

• Juusto = cheese as a substance / mass, not one specific item.
• halpaa in the partitive suggests “cheap in general / as a kind of thing today”, not “this particular cheese is cheap compared to another one”.

You could say:

• Juusto on halpa tänään.

but that tends to sound more like you are talking about a specific cheese (for example, a certain product you see in the store) rather than cheese as a general commodity.

So:

• Juusto on halpaa ≈ Cheese (as a product) is cheap.
• Tämä juusto on halpa ≈ This cheese is cheap (this particular item or type).

Why is juusto in the basic form, not juustoa?

Juusto here is the subject of the sentence, so it appears in the nominative (the dictionary form).

Finnish often uses a singular nominative noun to talk about something in general (a whole category), not just one piece:

• Juusto on kallista. = Cheese is expensive.
• Maito on kylmää. = Milk is cold.
• Suklaa on hyvää. = Chocolate is good.

So juusto here means “cheese in general”, not “a piece of cheese”.

Juustoa (partitive) would appear, for example, when it is an object or when you talk about an indefinite amount:

• Ostan juustoa. = I buy (some) cheese.
• Haluan juustoa. = I want (some) cheese.

But as a subject in a general statement with olla, nominative juusto is the normal choice.

What exactly does melko mean, and how strong is it?

Melko is an adverb meaning something like:

• quite
• fairly
• rather

In terms of “strength”, it is moderate. It softens the adjective a bit:

• halpa = cheap
• melko halpa = quite cheap / fairly cheap (not extremely cheap, but noticeably cheap)

Rough comparison of some common intensifiers:

• vähän halpa – a bit cheap
• melko halpa – quite / fairly cheap
• aika halpa – pretty cheap (often a bit stronger than melko)
• todella / tosi halpa – really cheap
• erittäin halpa – extremely cheap (more formal)

So Juusto on melko halpaa tänään ≈ The cheese is fairly cheap today.

Why is there a comma before joten?

Joten is a conjunction meaning “so / therefore” that links two independent clauses:

• Clause 1: Juusto on melko halpaa tänään
• Clause 2: (minä) ostan sitä enemmän

In Finnish, when you join two full sentences with joten, mutta, ja, etc., it is common (and in standard written Finnish, expected) to separate them with a comma:

• Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan sitä enemmän.

So the comma marks the boundary between:

1. Statement of the situation (cheese is cheap), and
2. Consequence (I will buy more).

What is the difference between joten and siksi or niin?

All of these can express a result, but they behave a bit differently.

• joten = so / therefore, a conjunction between clauses:

  • Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan sitä enemmän.
  • Cheese is quite cheap today, so I’ll buy more of it.

• siksi = for that reason / that’s why, an adverb, usually placed in the second clause:

  • Juusto on melko halpaa tänään. Siksi ostan sitä enemmän.
  • Cheese is quite cheap today. That’s why I’ll buy more of it.

• niin can also appear in a similar role, especially in spoken Finnish, often with että:

  • Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, niin ostan sitä enemmän. (colloquial)
  • Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, niin että ostan sitä enemmän. (so that… / in such a way that…)

In careful written Finnish, joten or siksi are safer, clearer choices for “so / therefore”.

Why is ostan (present tense) translated as “I will buy” and not “I buy”?

Finnish does not have a separate future tense like English. The present tense in Finnish is used for:

• Present time:
  • Ostan juustoa joka viikko. = I buy cheese every week.
• Future time:
  • Huomenna ostan juustoa. = Tomorrow I will buy cheese.

In Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan sitä enemmän, the context (today, reacting to today’s prices) naturally suggests a future-like meaning in English:

• …so I’ll buy more of it.

If you wanted to make it very clearly “right now, at this moment”, the English could also be:

• Cheese is quite cheap today, so I’m buying more of it.

But in Finnish, it’s the same form ostan in all these cases; context tells you whether it is future or present.

Why is the pronoun sitä used, not se or sen?

All three forms belong to the same pronoun se (it / that), but they are in different cases:

• se – nominative (subject): Se on hyvää. = It is good.
• sen – genitive (possessive): Sen hinta on hyvä. = Its price is good.
• sitä – partitive (object, among other uses): Ostan sitä. = I buy some of it.

In the sentence …joten ostan sitä enemmän, sitä is the object (what is being bought), and it is in the partitive.

So:

• se would be a subject form (It buys more – wrong meaning here).
• sen would mean “its”, i.e. possessive.
• sitä correctly marks “it” as an object, with the partitive needed by the quantity word enemmän.

Why is sitä in the partitive, and what is the role of enemmän here?

Enemmän means “more”. In Finnish, words of quantity like:

• enemmän (more)
• vähemmän (less)
• paljon (a lot / much / many)
• vähän (a little / few)

normally require the partitive for the thing being counted or measured.

Examples:

• Ostan enemmän juustoa. = I’ll buy more cheese.
• Juon vähemmän kahvia. = I drink less coffee.
• Luimme paljon kirjoja. = We read many books.

In ostan sitä enemmän, we have:

• sitä = of it (cheese), partitive of se
• enemmän = more

So literally: “I buy of it more” → I will buy more of it.

The partitive sitä fits the pattern: a quantity word (enemmän) + the thing being measured (sitä, in partitive).

Could I say …joten ostan enemmän juustoa instead of …joten ostan sitä enemmän?

Yes, that is perfectly correct and very natural:

• Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan enemmän juustoa.
  = Cheese is quite cheap today, so I’ll buy more cheese.

Differences in nuance:

• ostan enemmän juustoa

  • Explicitly repeats juustoa (cheese).
  • More neutral and a bit clearer if the context is not crystal clear.

• ostan sitä enemmän

  • Uses the pronoun sitä = of it, referring back to juusto.
  • Avoids repeating the noun, sounds slightly more conversational/natural if the reference is obvious.

Both are correct. In a short context where juusto is clearly the topic, either version works well.

Can I say ostan enemmän sitä instead of ostan sitä enemmän?

Ostan enemmän sitä is grammatically possible, but in this context ostan sitä enemmän is more usual.

Typical patterns:

• With a full noun, the quantifier usually comes first:

  • Ostan enemmän juustoa. = I’ll buy more cheese.

• With a pronoun, both orders can appear, but:

  • Ostan sitä enemmän is the most natural here for “I’ll buy more of it.”
  • Ostan enemmän sitä can sound a bit more contrastive or focused on enemmän (“I’ll buy more of it (than before / than something else)”).

So:

• Everyday neutral: ostan sitä enemmän.
• Slight extra emphasis on the amount: ostan enemmän sitä (still okay).

Could we leave out sitä and just say …joten ostan enemmän?

You can, but the meaning becomes less specific.

• …joten ostan enemmän.
  = …so I’ll buy more. (more what? It is understood only from context.)

If the conversation is clearly about cheese, listeners will probably understand that “more” refers to cheese. However, in isolation the sentence is incomplete:

• Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan sitä enemmän.
  – Explicit: I will buy more of it (cheese).
• Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan enemmän.
  – Implicit: I will buy more (probably cheese, but not stated).

For learners, it is safer and clearer to keep sitä (or juustoa) in the sentence.

How would the sentence change if cheese were plural, like juustot?

If you talk about cheeses in the plural (for example, different cheese products), the verb and adjective change:

• Juustot ovat melko halpoja tänään, joten ostan niitä enemmän.

Breakdown:

• juustot – cheeses (plural nominative)
• ovat – are (3rd person plural of olla)
• halpoja – plural partitive of halpa
• niitä – partitive plural of ne (they / those), referring to juustot

So the structure is the same:

• [Subject (plural)] + ovat + [adjective (plural partitive)], and
• The pronoun referring back to the subject as an object in partitive plural: niitä enemmän = more of them.

Can tänään move to another position in the sentence?

Yes. Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and tänään (today) can move as long as the meaning stays clear. Some options:

• Juusto on melko halpaa tänään, joten ostan sitä enemmän.
• Tänään juusto on melko halpaa, joten ostan sitä enemmän.

Both are fine. The second one slightly emphasizes “today”:

• Tänään juusto on melko halpaa… = Today, cheese is quite cheap…

You normally would not put tänään between melko and halpaa, though:

• Juusto on melko tänään halpaa – this is not natural.

So good patterns are:

• [Subject] on [adverb] [adjective] tänään…
• Tänään [subject] on [adverb] [adjective]…