Siinä on kaunis kuva.

There is a beautiful picture there.

Breakdown of Siinä on kaunis kuva.

• olla: to be
• kaunis: beautiful
• kuva: the picture
• siinä: there

Questions & Answers about Siinä on kaunis kuva.

What does siinä literally mean, and what form is it?

Siinä is the inessive case of the pronoun se (it / that).

• se = it, that
• siinä = in that, in it, sometimes there (in that thing)

Literally the sentence is close to In that (there) is a beautiful picture, which in normal English becomes There is a beautiful picture (in it/there) or That has a beautiful picture in it depending on context.

Why is it siinä on kaunis kuva and not se on kaunis kuva?

They express different things:

• Se on kaunis kuva.
  = That/it is a beautiful picture.
  You are directly identifying or evaluating the picture itself.

• Siinä on kaunis kuva.
  = There is a beautiful picture in/on that (thing).
  You are talking about something else (a book, page, screen, wall, etc.) and saying that a picture is located in/on it.

Example:

• Looking at a photo on the wall:
  Se on kaunis kuva. → That (picture) is beautiful.
• Looking at a book page with an illustration:
  Siinä on kaunis kuva. → On that page, there is a beautiful picture.

What is the grammatical role of siinä here?

Siinä functions as an adverbial of location (a place expression).

The structure is:

• Siinä (location adverbial, from se in inessive)
• on (verb olla, “to be”)
• kaunis kuva (subject: “a beautiful picture”)

So the subject is kaunis kuva, not siinä. Finnish existential sentences often start with a place expression:

• Pöydällä on kirja. – There is a book on the table.
• Siinä on kaunis kuva. – There is a beautiful picture in/on that (thing).

Why is it kuva and not kuvaa?

Kuva is in the nominative case because:

• The sentence is affirmative.
• Kuva is a countable, individual thing.
• In existential sentences (X on Y) with a countable, new subject in a positive sentence, Finnish usually uses nominative for the subject.

Compare with partitive kuvaa:

1. Siinä on kaunis kuva.
   → There is a beautiful picture (one whole picture).

2. Siinä ei ole kaunista kuvaa.
   → There is no beautiful picture there.
   Negation → subject goes to partitive (kaunista kuvaa).

3. Siinä on vähän kuvaa.
   → This would sound like “There is a bit of picture (image)” – treating it more like some amount of image content, not a single whole picture.

So nominative kuva fits an affirmative sentence about a single, whole picture.

Can I change the word order to Kaunis kuva on siinä? What changes?

You can, but the nuance changes.

• Siinä on kaunis kuva.
  Neutral existential: “There is a beautiful picture in/on that (thing).”
  Focus: something exists there.

• Kaunis kuva on siinä.
  More contrastive: “The beautiful picture is there (in/on that one).”
  Focus: where the beautiful picture is, often contrasting with some other place.

Example context:

• You’re looking for where the nice picture is among several pages:
  • Kaunis kuva on siinä. → The beautiful picture is in that one (not in the others).

What is the difference between siinä and siellä (and also tässä / tuossa / tuolla etc.)?

Very roughly:

• siinä – “in/on that (right there)”, often specific, concrete, already mentioned thing; closer or more precise.
• siellä – “there (in that place)”, more general / somewhere over there, not right at hand.

A quick overview with static location:

• tässä – here (very close, at/with me)
• tuossa – there (near you / between us / just a bit away)
• siinä – in/on that (specific thing just referred to, often near in context)
• täällä – here (in this area, this place)
• tuolla – over there (visible but further away)
• siellä – there (in that place, often not right here and not necessarily visible)

So Siinä on kaunis kuva suggests a specific thing (book page, screen, document, etc.) already in focus, not just some vague location.

Could I also say Tuossa on kaunis kuva or Siellä on kaunis kuva? How would that differ from Siinä on kaunis kuva?

Yes, and each has a slightly different nuance:

• Siinä on kaunis kuva.
  → In/on that (specific thing we’re talking about), there is a beautiful picture.
  Often refers to something just mentioned, like “on that page / in that document / on that screen”.

• Tuossa on kaunis kuva.
  → There (right there, near us / in front of us) is a beautiful picture.
  Often used while physically pointing at something nearby.

• Siellä on kaunis kuva.
  → There (in that place, over there / in that location) is a beautiful picture.
  More general place, not necessarily a specific object close by.

All three are grammatical; choice depends mainly on distance and how specific the referent is.

What exactly does kaunis mean, and does it have to agree with kuva?

Kaunis means “beautiful” or “pretty”.

Adjectives in Finnish agree with the nouns they modify in:

• case
• number

Here, kuva is:

• singular
• nominative

So the adjective is also:

• singular nominative: kaunis

If the noun changed, the adjective would change too:

• kaunis kuva – a beautiful picture (nominative singular)
• kauniin kuvan – of a beautiful picture (genitive singular)
• kauniita kuvia – beautiful pictures (partitive plural)
• kauniissa kuvassa – in a beautiful picture (inessive singular)

Why is the verb on used here, and what form is it?

On is the 3rd person singular present tense form of olla (“to be”):

• olla – to be
• minä olen – I am
• sinä olet – you are
• hän/se on – he/she/it is
• me olemme – we are
• te olette – you (pl.) are
• he/ne ovat – they are

In Siinä on kaunis kuva, the subject kaunis kuva is 3rd person singular, so the verb is on.

In everyday spoken Finnish, you might hear oon instead of on, but standard written Finnish uses on.

Does kuva mean only “picture”, or can it also mean “photo”, “image”, etc.?

Kuva is quite general:

• picture
• image
• drawing
• painting
• illustration
• photo (in casual speech, if context is clear)

If you specifically mean a photograph, you can say:

• valokuva – photograph
  
  • Siinä on kaunis valokuva. – There is a beautiful photograph (there/in it).

If you mean any kind of image (digital, abstract, not necessarily an artwork), kuva is usually fine.

How would I say That is a very beautiful picture instead of There is a beautiful picture in/on that?

To identify the picture (rather than talk about something that contains it), you use se on:

• Se on todella kaunis kuva. – That/it is a really beautiful picture.
• Se on hyvin kaunis kuva. – That is a very beautiful picture.
• Se on tosi kaunis kuva. – That is a really beautiful picture (more colloquial).

So:

• Siinä on kaunis kuva. → There is a beautiful picture in/on that (object/place).
• Se on kaunis kuva. → That (picture) is beautiful.

How do you pronounce siinä on kaunis kuva?

Approximate pronunciation (IPA):

• siinä – [ˈsiːnæ]

  • ii is a long [i] sound: like “see” but held a bit longer.
  • ä is like the a in English “cat”.

• on – [on]

  • Short o, as in British English “lot” (but a bit more closed).

• kaunis – [ˈkɑu̯nis]

  • au is a diphthong like “ow” in “cow”, but smoother.
  • Stress on the first syllable: kau-nis.

• kuva – [ˈkuʋɑ]

  • u like in “put” (short).
  • v is [ʋ], between English v and w.
  • Final a like the a in “father”.

Word stress is always on the first syllable of each word: SII-nä ON KAU-nis KU-va.