Learn Hardcore Finnish: Sunnuntaina aion maalata seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä. - On Sunday I am going to paint a small picture of the lake on the wall.

Finnish has no separate future tense. It normally uses the present tense to talk about the future, and sometimes adds verbs of intention or plan.

Aion is the 1st person singular of aikoa = “to intend, to plan to, to be going to”.

Aion maalata… = I intend to paint / I’m going to paint…
You could also say simply Maalaan seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä. = I will paint / I’m painting a small picture of a lake on the wall (on Sunday / someday), with the future understood from context.

Using aion makes it clear that this is a planned or intended future action, not just a generic statement.

Why is maalata in the basic infinitive form after aion?

The verb aikoa (“to intend”) is followed by the first infinitive (the dictionary form) of another verb:

aion maalata = I intend to paint
aiot lukea = you intend to read
hän aikoo matkustaa = he/she intends to travel

So maalata is in its infinitive form because aion is a modal-like verb that takes another verb in the infinitive, just like English “intend to paint” or “want to paint” (where paint is also a non-finite form).

What does the ending -lle in seinälle mean, and why not seinällä or seinään?

Seinä = wall. The three relevant case endings are:

seinällä (adessive: -lla/-llä) = on the wall (location, no movement)
seinälle (allative: -lle) = onto the wall (movement to a surface)
seinään (illative: -an/-en/-ön pattern) = into / in the wall (movement into the interior)

In this sentence:

maalata seinälle kuva = to paint a picture onto the wall (movement from not-on-the-wall to on-the-wall)

If you said:

Maalata seinää = to paint the wall (as a surface, e.g. repaint it)
Tehdä reiän seinään = to make a hole in the wall

So seinälle is used because the picture is being put onto the wall, not into it or describing a static location.

Why is it pienen kuvan and not pieni kuva?

Two things are happening:

Adjective–noun agreement
- pieni = small
- kuva = picture
- When kuva becomes kuvan (object in a certain case), the adjective must agree in case and number:
  - nominative: pieni kuva
  - genitive object: pienen kuvan
The object is in the genitive case (see next question), so kuva → kuvan, and the adjective must match: pieni → pienen.

So pienen kuvan is “small picture” with both words in the same case, as required in Finnish grammar.

Why is kuvan (picture) in the genitive case instead of kuva or kuvaa?

Finnish object case is tricky. Here’s the core idea:

kuvan is the genitive singular, used as a total object: the action is seen as complete / reaching its goal.
kuva (nominative) can also be a total object in some contexts, especially plural or with certain sentence types.
kuvaa (partitive) is typically an incomplete / ongoing or indefinite object.

In this sentence:

aion maalata pienen kuvan
→ The plan is to finish one whole small picture. The picture is a bounded, completed result, so Finnish uses a total object, here in the genitive.

Compare:

Maalaan kuvaa.
= I’m (in the process of) painting a picture. (Ongoing, not necessarily finished.)
Maalaan kuvan.
= I’ll paint (and complete) a picture.

So kuvan expresses that the painting of the picture is intended as a complete action.

How does järvestä mean “of a lake”? What’s the function of the ending -stä?

Järvi = lake.
Järvestä = lake + -stä (elative: “from (inside) something”).

In many expressions, Finnish uses the elative (-sta/-stä) to show what a picture, story, or information is about or of:

kuva järvestä = a picture of a lake (literally: a picture from a lake)
kirja Suomesta = a book about Finland
uutisia maailmasta = news from the world / about the world

So pienen kuvan järvestä is “a small picture of a lake”.

If you used järven instead (kuva järven), it would sound more like “the lake’s picture” (a possessive relationship) and is less natural in this meaning.

Can the word order be changed? For example, could I say Aion maalata sunnuntaina seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä?

Yes. Finnish word order is fairly flexible, and changes mostly affect emphasis, not basic meaning.

All of these are grammatically OK:

Sunnuntaina aion maalata seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä.
→ Emphasis on when: On Sunday I’m going to paint…
Aion sunnuntaina maalata seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä.
→ Slight emphasis on the plan itself, with time in the middle.
Aion maalata seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä sunnuntaina.
→ Time comes last; still understandable as “on Sunday”.
Seinälle aion sunnuntaina maalata pienen kuvan järvestä.
→ Emphasis on the wall: that’s where the painting will go.

Placing Sunnuntaina at the beginning is very natural when you want to set the time frame first, much like in English “On Sunday, I’m going to…”.

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

Finnish has no articles (no equivalents of English a/an or the).

Definiteness or indefiniteness is understood from:

Context and shared knowledge
Word order
Sometimes case and other structures

So:

pienen kuvan järvestä can be understood as:
- a small picture of a lake (indefinite)
- or the small picture of the lake (definite), depending on what has been mentioned before.

If you really had to make it clear in Finnish, you’d normally change the surrounding context, not add a little word like the or a.

Could I say Maalaan sunnuntaina seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä instead of Sunnuntaina aion maalata…? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Maalaan sunnuntaina seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä.

Differences:

Aion maalata…
→ Emphasizes intention / plan. “I intend / I’m going to paint…”
Maalaan… (+ time expression)
→ Simple present tense with future meaning. “I will paint (on Sunday)…”, a bit more matter-of-fact.

Both are natural. Aion maalata sounds a bit more like you’re talking about a decision or plan, whereas Maalaan… is more neutral: this is just something that will happen.

How would I say “On Sunday I’m going to paint a small picture of the lake on the wall”, referring to a specific, known lake?

You can still use järvestä if the specific lake is clear from context:

Sunnuntaina aion maalata seinälle pienen kuvan järvestä.
→ Could mean of a lake or of the lake, depending on context.

If you want to make the lake explicit:

Sunnuntaina aion maalata seinälle pienen kuvan siitä järvestä.
= On Sunday I’m going to paint a small picture of that lake on the wall.

Here:

siitä järvestä = “of that lake” (demonstrative se in elative: siitä
- järvestä).

How would I say “On Sunday I’m going to paint a small picture on the lake, not on the wall”? Which case would I use?

If you literally mean on the surface of the lake (e.g. on ice), you’d use the adessive:

Sunnuntaina aion maalata järvellä pienen kuvan.
= On Sunday I’m going to paint a small picture on the lake.

Compare the cases:

järvellä (adessive) = on the lake (on its surface / at the lake)
järveen (illative) = into the lake
järvestä (elative) = from the lake / of the lake
seinälle (allative) = onto the wall

So the case ending tells you very precisely where or in what relation something is happening.