Learn Hardcore Finnish: Kauppakeskuksen liukuportaat vievät toiseen kerrokseen, jossa on kerroskartta. - The shopping mall’s escalators take you to the second floor, where there is a floor map.

In Finnish you often use the genitive to show a relationship like “the X of Y” or “Y’s X”.
So kauppakeskuksen liukuportaat literally means “the shopping centre’s escalators”, which in natural English is just “the mall escalator(s)” or “the escalator(s) in the mall”.

This pattern is very common:

talon katto → talon is genitive of talo → the house’s roof / the roof of the house
koulun piha → koulun is genitive of koulu → the school yard / the yard of the school

Why is liukuportaat in the plural, even though English says just “escalator”?

Finnish liukuportaat is grammatically plural only (like English scissors or stairs).

liuku = sliding
portaat = steps / stairs (plural of porras)

Together liukuportaat is used for “an escalator” or “escalators”; Finnish doesn’t have a commonly used singular liukuporras in everyday speech.

Because liukuportaat is plural, it:

looks plural (ends in -t), and
requires a plural verb: liukuportaat vievät (the escalator(s) take), not vie.

Why is the verb vievät and not vie?

Finnish verbs agree with the number (singular/plural) of the subject.

liukuportaat is plural
so the verb must be 3rd person plural → vievät

Compare:

Liukuportaat vievät toiseen kerrokseen.
The escalator(s) take (you) to the second floor.
Hissi vie toiseen kerrokseen.
The elevator takes (you) to the second floor. (here hissi is singular → vie, not vievät)

What exactly does vievät mean here? Is it “take”, “lead”, or “go”?

The verb is viedä. In this context vievät means something like:

“take (someone) to”
“lead to”

So liukuportaat vievät toiseen kerrokseen ≈ “the escalator(s) take you to the second floor” or “the escalator(s) lead up to the second floor”.

Notice that Finnish doesn’t need to mention “you” explicitly. The idea is general: these escalators take people (whoever uses them) to that floor.

Why is it toiseen kerrokseen and not just toinen kerros?

Toiseen kerrokseen shows movement to the second floor.

Both words are in the illative case (the “into / to” case):

toinen → toiseen (“into/to the second”)
kerros → kerrokseen (“into/to the floor”)

So toiseen kerrokseen literally means “into the second floor” → natural English: “to the second floor”.

If you said toinen kerros, that’s basic nominative, more like “the second floor” as a subject:

Toinen kerros on remontissa. – The second floor is under renovation.

What’s the difference between toiseen kerrokseen and toisessa kerroksessa?

They use different local cases:

toiseen kerrokseen → illative = movement into / to a place
- The escalator(s) take you *to the second floor.*
toisessa kerroksessa → inessive = location in / on a place
- On the second floor there is a floor map.
- Toisessa kerroksessa on kerroskartta.

In the sentence you gave, we are talking about going to that floor, so illative (toiseen kerrokseen) is the right choice.

What does jossa mean, and how is it related to joka?

Jossa is a relative pronoun meaning roughly “where” or “in which”.

It is the inessive form of joka:

joka (nominative) – who/which/that
jonka (genitive)
jota (partitive)
jossa (inessive) – in which / where
josta (elative) – from which / from where
jne. (etc.)

In your sentence:

toiseen kerrokseen, jossa on kerroskartta
→ “to the second floor, where there is a floor map”
→ literally: “to the second floor, in which there is a floor map.”

Jossa refers back to toiseen kerrokseen (that floor).

Why is there a comma before jossa?

In Finnish, subordinate clauses like this one are normally separated by a comma.

Kauppakeskuksen liukuportaat vievät toiseen kerrokseen,
jossa on kerroskartta.

The part starting with jossa is a relative clause giving extra information about the second floor. Finnish punctuation rules say you put a comma before this kind of clause, even if English would not always do so.

Why is it jossa on kerroskartta and not something like “jossa kerroskartta on”?

Both word orders are grammatically possible:

jossa on kerroskartta
jossa kerroskartta on

But jossa on kerroskartta is the typical, neutral order to express existence:
“there is a floor map (there)”.

The structure is:

[place] + on + [thing]
- Siellä on kerroskartta. – There is a floor map there.
- Jossa on kerroskartta. – Where there is a floor map.

If you move kerroskartta in front of on, you often add emphasis to kerroskartta (e.g. that’s where the floor map is), which is not needed here.

What does kerroskartta literally mean? Is it a compound word?

Yes, kerroskartta is a compound noun:

kerros = layer, storey, floor
kartta = map

Together: kerroskartta = “floor map”, “map of a floor (of a building)”.
The main word is the last part (kartta), and kerros specifies what kind of map it is.

Finnish forms many nouns like this:

kauppakeskus = kauppa (shop) + keskus (centre) → shopping centre
kaupunkikartta = kaupunki (city) + kartta (map) → city map

Why is there no word for “you” in the Finnish sentence?

Finnish often leaves out generic objects like “you” or “people” when the meaning is obvious.

English:

The escalator *takes you to the second floor.*

Finnish:

Liukuportaat vievät toiseen kerrokseen.
Literally: The escalator(s) take to the second floor.

It’s understood that the escalator takes whoever uses it (people in general) there. Adding an explicit object like sinut (you, singular) or ihmiset (people) would sound unnecessary or even a bit odd here.

Could I change the word order, for example Toiseen kerrokseen vievät kauppakeskuksen liukuportaat? Would it still be correct?

Yes, that word order is grammatically correct, but the focus changes.

Kauppakeskuksen liukuportaat vievät toiseen kerrokseen…
→ neutral, subject-first: The mall’s escalators take you to the second floor…
Toiseen kerrokseen vievät kauppakeskuksen liukuportaat…
→ emphasises the destination first: To the second floor lead the mall’s escalators…
(more stylistic or contrastive, for example if you’re explaining different ways to get to different floors)

Finnish word order is flexible, but:

Subject-first (Kauppakeskuksen liukuportaat vievät…) is the most neutral and common in this kind of informative sentence.