Learn Hardcore Finnish: Pitkä jono lääkärille voi olla pitkästyttävä, mutta on tärkeää odottaa rauhassa. - A long line to the doctor can be tedious, but it is important to wait calmly.

lääkäri = doctor (basic form, nominative)
lääkärille = to the doctor (allative)
lääkärissä = at the doctor’s / in the doctor’s office (inessive, “inside / at”)

In this sentence, pitkä jono lääkärille is literally “a long queue to the doctor”, meaning a line of people who are waiting to see the doctor. That’s why -lle is used: the whole queue is directed towards the doctor (or the doctor’s office).

If you said pitkä jono lääkärissä, it would sound like there is a long physical line inside the doctor (which is nonsense) or at least be very odd; -ssä/-ssä marks being in or at a place, not being directed to it.

What is the grammatical role of pitkä jono? Why isn’t it in some other case like pitkä jonoa?

Pitkä jono is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative case:

pitkä = long (adjective)
jono = queue, line (noun)

Together: pitkä jono = “a long queue”.

In Finnish, the subject is usually nominative (no special ending) when it is a countable, whole thing being described. That’s the case here: the sentence is saying that the long queue (as a whole) can be boring.

The form pitkä jonoa would be the partitive case, which you’d use if the queue was being treated as an undefined amount or if some verbs/adjectives required the partitive. For example:

Tässä on pitkää jonoa. – “There is (some) long queue (forming).”
(Partitive emphasizes an ongoing, not-complete, or vague amount.)

In this sentence, though, we just have a/one long queue, so nominative pitkä jono is correct.

Why is pitkä repeated as pitkä jono and then pitkästyttävä? Is that normal?

Yes, it’s normal, but the two words have different functions:

pitkä = long (describes length)
pitkästyttävä = boring, tedious (literally “making [someone] feel that something is long / dragged out”)

So the structure is:

Pitkä jono – a queue that is physically long
voi olla pitkästyttävä – can be boring / tedious

Finnish often uses related words like this without it sounding clumsy. In English you might even say:

“A long line can be a long wait.”
“A long line can be tedious / boring.”

If you wanted, you could avoid the repetition by using another adjective:

Pitkä jono lääkärille voi olla tylsä…
“A long queue to the doctor can be boring…”

But the original is perfectly natural: first describing length, then describing the emotion / experience caused by that length.

What exactly does voi olla mean here, and why do we need voi?

Voi olla is:

voi = can / may (3rd person singular of voida, “to be able to / may”)
olla = to be (basic infinitive of olla, “to be”)

Together: voi olla = “can be / may be”.

So:

Pitkä jono lääkärille voi olla pitkästyttävä
= “A long queue to the doctor can be boring.”

We use voi to add the idea of possibility. It does not say that every long queue is always boring, just that it can be.

If we dropped voi and said:

Pitkä jono lääkärille on pitkästyttävä

it would mean:

“A long queue to the doctor is boring” (as a general, stronger statement).

So voi softens it to “can be” or “may be”.

Why is there a comma before mutta?

Mutta means “but”, and in Finnish it usually starts a new clause. Just like in English, when you join two independent clauses with “but”, you use a comma:

Pitkä jono lääkärille voi olla pitkästyttävä, mutta on tärkeää odottaa rauhassa.

This is structurally like English:

“A long queue to the doctor can be boring, but it is important to wait calmly.”

So the comma marks the boundary between the two clauses joined by mutta. Omitting the comma is usually considered wrong or at least non-standard in written Finnish.

In mutta on tärkeää odottaa rauhassa, where is the subject? Why isn’t there a word like se or sinun?

This is an example of an impersonal (subjectless) construction that is very common in Finnish:

on tärkeää = “it is important”
odottaa = to wait
rau hassa = calmly / in peace

In English we use a “dummy subject” it:

“It is important to wait calmly.”

Finnish doesn’t need such a dummy subject. The clause can stand as:

on tärkeää odottaa rauhassa
literally: “is important to wait calmly.”

Who is meant? People in general; everyone who is in the queue. If you wanted to specify you in particular, you could say, for example:

On tärkeää, että odotat rauhassa.
“It is important that you wait calmly.”

But in the original, Finnish just leaves the subject out because it’s generic and obvious from context.

Why is tärkeää in this form and not just tärkeä?

Tärkeää here is in the partitive case, singular. This is a standard pattern in Finnish with impersonal expressions like:

On tärkeää… – It is important…
On hyvää… – It is good…
On mahdollista… – It is possible…

When you say “it is ADJECTIVE to do something”, Finnish typically uses partitive singular for the adjective:

On tärkeää odottaa. – It is important to wait.
On vaikeaa ymmärtää. – It is difficult to understand.
On hauskaa pelata. – It is fun to play.

So tärkeä (basic form) becomes tärkeää in this construction. This is simply a grammatical pattern you have to learn: ADJ + partitive after on in these “it is X to do Y” sentences.

What does odottaa look like in the dictionary, and is it transitive or intransitive here?

The dictionary (basic) form is odottaa, exactly as in the sentence.

Infinitive: odottaa = to wait (for), to expect.

Odottaa is usually transitive: it takes an object in the partitive:

Odotan bussia. – I’m waiting for the bus.
Odotamme lääkäriä. – We’re waiting for the doctor.

In your sentence, however, odottaa doesn’t have any explicit object. It’s more like the English “to wait” used intransitively:

on tärkeää odottaa rauhassa
= “it is important to wait calmly”

We know from context that this means “wait (for your turn / for the doctor)”, but Finnish doesn’t need to repeat the object here. Grammatically, you can think of it as transitive by nature, but being used without an expressed object.

Why is rau hassa used instead of something like rauhallisesti?

Both are possible, but they are slightly different:

rau hassa = “in peace, in calm(ness), peacefully”
– Inessive case (ending -ssa), literally “in peace”.
rauhallisesti = “calmly, in a calm way”
– Adverb formed from rauhallinen (calm).

Rauhassa odottaa is a very common, idiomatic phrase in Finnish:

odottaa rauhassa = wait in peace / wait calmly, without stress or fuss.

It focuses more on the state you are in (being in a peaceful condition).
Rauhallisesti odottaa would emphasize more the manner of your waiting (in a calm, controlled way), and is also correct, just a slightly different nuance.

In everyday Finnish, rau hassa odottaa sounds natural and slightly more idiomatic in this context.

Could you say lääkärijono instead of jono lääkärille?

Yes, you could, but the nuance is slightly different.

pitkä jono lääkärille – literally “a long queue to the doctor”
pitkä lääkärijono – literally “a long doctor-queue”

Both would normally be understood as a line of people waiting for the doctor. But:

jono lääkärille more clearly highlights the direction/purpose: a queue to the doctor.
lääkärijono is a compound noun and feels a bit more newspaper-like or technical: it can mean the queue length in healthcare / for doctors in a broader sense (waiting lists, etc.).

In a simple everyday sentence about waiting in a physical line, pitkä jono lääkärille is very natural and perhaps clearer.

Is the word order fixed, or could you say the parts in another order?

The basic word order here is the most neutral:

Pitkä jono lääkärille (subject phrase)
voi olla (verb)
pitkästyttävä (predicate adjective),
mutta (conjunction)
on tärkeää (impersonal verb phrase)
odottaa rauhassa (infinitive phrase).

You can change the order a bit for emphasis or style, but you must keep the parts of each phrase together and keep it grammatical. For example:

Lääkärille pitkä jono voi olla pitkästyttävä…
– Possible, but slightly more marked; it emphasizes “to the doctor”.
Pitkä jono lääkärille on tärkeää odottaa rauhassa.
– Incorrect: this sounds like “A long queue to the doctor is important to wait calmly”, mixing the structures.

So yes, there is some flexibility, but the original word order is the best, neutral choice. As a learner, it’s good to stick close to this pattern until you are more comfortable with Finnish word order.

Why are there no words like a or the in this Finnish sentence?

Finnish does not have articles like a/an or the at all.

So:

Pitkä jono can mean:
- “a long queue”
- “the long queue”
- sometimes even just “long queues” (depending on context)

Finnish relies on context and sometimes word order or pronouns to express the kinds of definiteness and specificity that English marks with a/an/the. In this case:

We naturally interpret pitkä jono lääkärille as “a long queue to the doctor” because we are talking about a typical situation, not a specific one already known in the conversation.

If you needed to be very specific, you might add other words, but you never add articles because Finnish simply doesn’t use them.