Learn Hardcore Finnish: Syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa, sunnuntai-iltana. - I eat treats, for example a bun, on Sunday evening.

The quantity is unspecified / incomplete:
You are eating some treats, not a clearly limited, complete set of treats.
With verbs of eating and drinking, the partitive is the default when you mean “some (of it)” rather than “the whole thing”.

So:

Syön herkkuja ≈ I eat / I’m eating some treats.
Syön pullaa ≈ I eat / I’m eating some bun / some sweet roll.

The partitive signals that the amount is not fixed or not all of something.

Could I say Syön herkut or Syön pullan instead? What would that mean?

Yes, but the meaning changes.

Syön herkut.
Here herkut is a total object (nominative plural). This usually implies:
- a specific, known set of treats, and
- that you eat all of them.
Roughly: I’ll eat the treats (all of them).
Syön pullan.
pullan is a total object (genitive singular). This usually means:
- one specific bun, and
- you eat the whole bun.
Roughly: I’ll eat the bun (the whole thing).

So:

Syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa → some indefinite amount.
Syön herkut / Syön pullan → a definite, complete amount.

This “partial vs. total object” contrast is a core function of the partitive in Finnish.

Does pullaa mean “a bun”, “buns”, or “some bun”? How do I know if it’s singular or plural?

Formally, pullaa is partitive singular, but Finnish often uses the singular partitive in a mass / indefinite sense.

Typical readings:

pullaa alone ≈ some bun / some sweet roll / some coffee bread (mass-like)
kaksi pullaa = two buns (the numeral tells you it’s plural in meaning)

So:

The form pullaa itself is grammatically singular,
but in context it often just means some (amount of) bun-like pastry, without stressing number.
If you need clear plural without a number, use pullia (partitive plural):
Syön pullia ≈ I eat buns / I’m eating buns.

In your sentence, esimerkiksi pullaa is best taken as for example (some) bun / sweet roll, not focusing on whether it’s one or several pieces.

What exactly does esimerkiksi mean, and why is esimerkiksi pullaa surrounded by commas?

esimerkiksi is an adverb meaning “for example / for instance”.

In the sentence:

Syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa, sunnuntai-iltana.

the phrase esimerkiksi pullaa gives an example of herkkuja (treats). The commas show that this is a parenthetical piece of extra information, similar to English:

I eat treats, for example buns, on Sunday evening.

About commas and placement:

With the same meaning you could also say:
- Syön herkkuja sunnuntai-iltana, esimerkiksi pullaa.
  (I eat treats on Sunday evening, for example buns.)
- Syön esimerkiksi pullaa sunnuntai-iltana.
  (I eat, for example, bun on Sunday evening. — now the example is more tightly attached to the verb.)
You would not normally write:
Syön herkkuja, pullaa, sunnuntai-iltana.
If you want a simple list without “for example”, you’d usually add ja (and):
Syön herkkuja ja pullaa sunnuntai-iltana.

So the commas mark esimerkiksi pullaa as an inserted example of what kinds of treats you eat.

Why is it sunnuntai-iltana and not just sunnuntai-ilta? What does the ending -na mean?

sunnuntai-iltana is:

sunnuntai (Sunday)
ilta (evening) → compound sunnuntai-ilta (Sunday evening)
plus the essive case ending -na → sunnuntai-iltana

So sunnuntai-iltana literally means “as (on) Sunday evening”, and in practice just:

on Sunday evening (a particular one).

The essive case (-na) is commonly used for:

points in time / specific occasions:
- maanantaina – on Monday
- jouluna – at Christmas
- tänä iltana – this evening
- sunnuntai-iltana – on Sunday evening (a particular evening)

It makes it clear you are talking about when something happens, not just naming “Sunday evening” as a noun in isolation.

Could I also say sunnuntai-iltaisin? How does sunnuntai-iltaisin differ from sunnuntai-iltana?

Yes, you can, but the meaning changes slightly:

sunnuntai-iltana (essive)
→ on Sunday evening (usually one specific Sunday evening, understood from context).
sunnuntai-iltaisin
→ on Sunday evenings (in general, habitually).

Compare:

Syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa, sunnuntai-iltana.
→ I will eat / I eat treats (this) Sunday evening (or some specific Sunday evening we’re talking about).
Syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa, sunnuntai-iltaisin.
→ I eat treats, for example bun, on Sunday evenings (as a routine).

The ending -isin often turns a time word into a habitual time expression (on Xs / X-ly):
iltaisin (in the evenings), sunnuntaisin (on Sundays), sunnuntai-iltaisin (on Sunday evenings).

In English I’d probably say “I will eat treats … on Sunday evening.” Why does Finnish use present tense Syön for this?

Finnish usually does not have a special future tense. The simple present covers both:

present time and
future time,

and the time expression tells you which one is meant.

So:

Syön herkkuja.
→ I eat treats / I am eating treats. (present, general or right now)
Syön herkkuja sunnuntai-iltana.
→ I will eat treats on Sunday evening. (future, because of the time phrase)

If context or a time phrase clearly points to the future, Syön is naturally understood as future, even though the form is “present” grammatically.

There are no words like a, an, or the in Syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa, sunnuntai-iltana. How do I know if this means “the treats” or “some treats”?

Finnish has no articles at all. Definiteness is shown indirectly, mainly by:

context,
pronouns (like se / ne = that / those),
and object form (partitive vs. total object) plus word order.

In your sentence:

Syön herkkuja with partitive plural and no pronoun is naturally understood as indefinite:
- I eat treats / I’ll have some treats.

If you specifically wanted “the treats”, you would typically make it clearer, for example:

Syön ne herkut sunnuntai-iltana.
→ I’ll eat those treats on Sunday evening.

So, as it stands, the most neutral English rendering is “I eat / I’ll eat some treats…”, not “I eat the treats…”.

Is the word order fixed, or can I move parts of the sentence around, like Sunnuntai-iltana syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa?

Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and moving elements mainly changes emphasis, not basic grammar.

All of these are grammatical, with slightly different focus:

Syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa, sunnuntai-iltana.
→ Neutral: focus on what you eat, time added at the end.
Sunnuntai-iltana syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa.
→ Emphasis on when: On Sunday evening I eat treats, for example bun.
Herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa, syön sunnuntai-iltana.
→ Strong emphasis on treats (more marked / stylistic).

General tendencies:

The finite verb (syön) often appears early, but not necessarily second like in German.
Time and place expressions can go at the beginning or end.
Objects can be moved for emphasis.

So yes, Sunnuntai-iltana syön herkkuja, esimerkiksi pullaa is perfectly normal Finnish.

How should I pronounce the double consonants and vowels in words like herkkuja, pullaa, and sunnuntai?

In Finnish, double letters are really long sounds, not just spelling.

herkkuja:
- kk is a long /k/, so you hold the [k] sound longer:
  herk-ku-ja, not her-ku-ja.
pullaa:
- ll is a long /l/ → pul-laa
- aa is a long /a/ → the final aa is clearly longer than a single a.
sunnuntai:
- nn is a long /n/ → sun-nun-tai, not su-nun-tai.

Length differences can change meaning, so it’s important:

pula (shortage) vs. pulla (bun).
muta (mud) vs. mutta (but).

When you see a doubled consonant or vowel in Finnish, always pronounce it as noticeably longer than a single one.