Learn Hardcore Finnish: Pidän tästä työpaikkaruokalasta, koska tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön. - I like this workplace cafeteria because the atmosphere is relaxed and unrushed.

In Finnish, the verb pitää in the meaning “to like” normally takes its object in the elative case (-sta/-stä), literally “to like from something.”

pitää + elative
- Pidän tästä. = “I like this.” (lit. I like from this.)
- Pidän musiikista. = “I like music.”

So in your sentence:

Pidän tästä työpaikkaruokalasta
- tästä = “from this” (demonstrative in elative)
- työpaikkaruokalasta = “from the workplace cafeteria” (noun in elative)

It feels strange from an English point of view, but in Finnish this is the standard construction:
pitää jostakin = “to like something.”

Be careful not to confuse it with pitää + sta in the sense “to hold from” or “to keep,” which is different usage of the same verb. Context tells the meaning.

Why are both tästä and työpaikkaruokalasta in the same case (-sta)? Couldn’t one of them stay in the basic form?

In Finnish, modifiers must agree in case and number with the noun they modify. Here, tästä is a demonstrative pronoun modifying työpaikkaruokalasta:

Base forms: tämä työpaikkaruokala = “this workplace cafeteria”
In your sentence, you need the elative because of pitää (tykätä) + elative:
- tästä työpaikkaruokalasta = “from this workplace cafeteria”

So both parts get:

same case: elative (-sta)
same number: singular

You cannot say:
✗ Pidän tämä työpaikkaruokala.
✗ Pidän tästä työpaikkaruokala.

They would be ungrammatical. The correct choices all show agreement:

Pidän tästä työpaikkaruokalasta.
Pidän tästä ruokalasta.
Pidän tästä paikasta.

What is the base form of työpaikkaruokalasta, and how is that long word constructed?

The base (dictionary) form is:

työpaikkaruokala = workplace cafeteria / works canteen

It’s a compound noun, built in steps:

työ = work
työpaikka = workplace (työ + paikka “place”)
ruokala = cafeteria / canteen (ruoka “food” + -la “place where X happens”)
työpaikkaruokala = cafeteria related to the workplace

Then, in the sentence it appears in the elative singular:

työpaikkaruokalasta = “from the workplace cafeteria”

Pattern:
työpaikkaruokala → stem työpaikkaruokala- + -sta → työpaikkaruokalasta

Could I just say Pidän tästä ruokalasta instead of tästä työpaikkaruokalasta? Does it change the meaning?

Yes, you can say Pidän tästä ruokalasta, and it is grammatically fine. The difference is in specificity:

tästä työpaikkaruokalasta: clearly “this workplace cafeteria” (implies it’s the canteen associated with your work)
tästä ruokalasta: more general “this cafeteria,” without explicitly saying it’s at your workplace (context may still make that obvious)

So:

If you want to emphasize that it’s the workplace canteen (not some other cafeteria), use työpaikkaruokala.
If it’s already clear from context where you are, ruokala alone is often enough.

Why is there a comma before koska? In English we don’t always put a comma before “because.”

Finnish comma rules are different from English ones. In Finnish, you normally put a comma before most subordinate clauses, including those introduced by koska (“because”), regardless of whether the clause comes before or after the main clause.

So it’s standard to write:

Pidän tästä työpaikkaruokalasta, koska tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön.
Koska tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön, pidän tästä työpaikkaruokalasta.

In both cases, the comma is required before koska (or immediately before the subordinate clause if it comes first).

Why is tunnelma in the basic form (nominative) instead of some case like tunnelmasta?

In “tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön” we have a simple “X is Y” structure:

tunnelma = subject (nominative)
on = verb “to be”
rento and kiireetön = predicate adjectives (also nominative)

In Finnish, with olla (“to be”), both the subject and the describing word typically appear in the nominative when we are just stating a quality:

Tunnelma on hyvä. – “The atmosphere is good.”
Ruokala on iso. – “The cafeteria is big.”

You would use cases like -sta (elative) on tunnelma if the verb or preposition demanded it, but here, after on, it just takes the nominative.

What’s the difference between rento and kiireetön? Don’t they both just mean “relaxed”?

They are related in meaning but not identical:

rento
- literally: loose, relaxed
- describes the feel or mood: informal, easy-going, not stiff
- can describe people, style, atmosphere, clothing, etc.
- rento tunnelma = a relaxed, easy-going atmosphere
kiireetön
- built from kiire (“hurry, rush”) + suffix -ton/-tön (“without”)
- literally: “without hurry” → unhurried, leisurely
- emphasizes lack of time pressure or rushing
- kiireetön tunnelma = an atmosphere where nobody is rushing, there’s no stress about time

In your sentence, using both together:

rento ja kiireetön = relaxed and unhurried
emphasizes both the informal, easy-going feeling (rento) and the absence of rush or stress (kiireetön).

How is kiireetön formed exactly, and why are there two e’s in the middle?

kiireetön comes from:

kiire (noun) = hurry, rush
suffix -ton/-tön = “without (X)”, “lacking (X)”

Formation:

Base: kiire
Add -tOn (ton/tön depending on vowel harmony)
When you attach -ton to a word ending in -e, Finnish often adds an extra e to join them smoothly:
- kiire
  - -tön → kiireetön

Meaning: “without hurry” → unhurried.

The same pattern appears in words like:

melu (noise) → meluton (noiseless)
valo (light) → valoton (without light, dark)

For words ending in -e, expect that double e before -ton/-tön.

Why are rento and kiireetön not inflected for any case? Shouldn’t they match tunnelma somehow?

They do match tunnelma—they are just in the same form (nominative singular), which looks like the basic dictionary form.

In “tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön”:

tunnelma = nominative singular (subject)
rento, kiireetön = nominative singular (predicate adjectives describing the subject)

This is the standard pattern with the verb olla (“to be”):

Sää on huono. – “The weather is bad.”
Ruoka on hyvää. – “The food is good.” (here hyvää can be partitive for nuance, but “Ruoka on hyvä” is also possible)
Tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön.

If you changed the role of tunnelma (e.g. made it object in some other sentence), then the adjectives would agree in case. But here, nominative is correct and already shows agreement.

Could I also say Pidän tämän työpaikkaruokalan tunnelmasta? How would that compare to the original sentence?

Yes, you can say that, but the structure and nuance change a bit.

Original:
- Pidän tästä työpaikkaruokalasta, koska tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön.
- Literally: “I like this workplace cafeteria, because the atmosphere is relaxed and unhurried.”
- You state that you like the place itself, and then you explain why (due to the atmosphere).
Alternative:
- Pidän tämän työpaikkaruokalan tunnelmasta.
- pidän + elative as usual, but now the thing you like is specifically tunnelma (“the atmosphere”), and you specify whose atmosphere: “of this workplace cafeteria.”
- Literally: “I like the atmosphere of this workplace cafeteria.”

Differences:

Original: focus on liking the canteen as a whole, followed by a reason.
Alternative: focus directly on liking the atmosphere.

Both are correct; you just shift what is foregrounded.

Can I use tykkään instead of pidän here? Is there any difference?

You can absolutely say:

Tykkään tästä työpaikkaruokalasta, koska tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön.

Key points:

tykätä + elative works the same way as pitää + elative:
- tykkään tästä = “I like this”
- tykkään musiikista = “I like music”

Differences in tone:

pitää (jostakin): neutral, works in both casual and formal contexts.
tykätä (jostakin): more colloquial, very common in speech, slightly less formal in writing.

In everyday conversation, both are fine; many speakers prefer tykätä in casual speech. In more formal written Finnish, pitää is often preferred.

Why is there no “a” or “the” before tunnelma? How do I know if it means “a relaxed atmosphere” or “the relaxed atmosphere”?

Finnish has no articles (“a/an” or “the”), so nouns like tunnelma appear without any article-like word:

tunnelma can correspond to “a mood,” “the mood,” or just “mood,” depending on context.

In your sentence:

tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön
You would usually translate it as “the atmosphere is relaxed and unhurried”, because we are talking about the specific atmosphere in that cafeteria.

How do you know in Finnish?

Specificity and definiteness are understood from context, word order, and what has been mentioned before, not from an article.
If you want to stress indefiniteness or quantity, you can sometimes use words like yksi (“one”) or eräs (“a certain”), but they don’t function exactly like English articles.

So you mentally supply “a” or “the” in English, but Finnish simply doesn’t mark this grammatically.

Is the word order “koska tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön” fixed, or could I say “koska rento ja kiireetön on tunnelma”?

The natural, neutral word order is:

koska tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön

This follows the usual Subject – Verb – Complement pattern:

subject: tunnelma
verb: on
complement: rento ja kiireetön

Something like:

✗ koska rento ja kiireetön on tunnelma

is grammatically odd and very unnatural in this context. You might see marked orders like that in poetry or for strong emphasis, but in normal speech and writing you should stick with:

tunnelma on rento ja kiireetön

So the word order here is not entirely “free”; there is a clear preference that makes the sentence sound natural.