Tässä maalauksessa on suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.

In this painting there is a big yellow tree and a small orange house.

Breakdown of Tässä maalauksessa on suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.

• olla: to be
• tämä: this
• pieni: small
• ja: and
• -ssa: in
• suuri: big
• talo: the house
• puu: the tree
• keltainen: yellow
• oranssi: orange
• maalaus: the painting

Questions & Answers about Tässä maalauksessa on suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.

What does Tässä maalauksessa literally mean, and how would you translate it naturally into English?

Literally, Tässä maalauksessa means “in this painting (here)”.

• tämä = this
  
  • inessive (”in”) form: tässä = in this / here in this
• maalaus = painting
  
  • inessive form: maalauksessa = in (the) painting

So Tässä maalauksessa is best translated as “In this painting” in natural English.

Why are both tässä and maalauksessa in the -ssa form? Isn’t one “in” enough?

In Finnish, determiners (like tämä, “this”) and the noun they modify usually share the same case.

• tämä talo = this house
  
  • inessive: tässä talossa = in this house
• tämä maalaus = this painting
  
  • inessive: tässä maalauksessa = in this painting

So:

• tässä = “in this” (tämä in inessive)
• maalauksessa = “in the painting” (maalaus in inessive)

It feels like “double in” to an English speaker, but in Finnish it’s normal case agreement inside the noun phrase: all parts take the same case.

What case is maalauksessa, and how is it formed from maalaus?

Maalauksessa is in the inessive case, which often corresponds to English “in / inside”.

Formation:

• basic form: maalaus = painting
• stem: maalauks-
• inessive ending: -ssa / -ssä

So:

• maalauks
  • essa → maalauksessa = in the painting

The -ssa ending changes slightly depending on vowel harmony (ssa vs. ssä), but here it’s -ssa because of the back vowel a in maalaus.

Why is the verb on used here, and how does it relate to “there is” in English?

On is the 3rd person singular of olla = to be.

In sentences like this, Finnish uses an existential construction:

Tässä maalauksessa on suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.
In this painting there is a large yellow tree and a small orange house.

Structure:

• Location (Tässä maalauksessa)
• Verb (on)
• New thing(s) being introduced (suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo)

So Finnish just uses “is” (on), and the “there” part of “there is” is expressed by the location phrase at the beginning, not by a separate word like “there”.

Why are puu and talo in their basic form (nominative) and not in some other case like partitive?

Puu and talo are in nominative singular, because:

• they are countable, whole items (one tree, one house)
• we are introducing them as new things that exist in the painting

In existential sentences:

• use nominative singular for a whole, specific countable item:
  • Pöydällä on kirja. = There is a (whole) book on the table.
• use partitive for “some of” / uncountable / incomplete / not whole amount:
  • Pöydällä on kirjaa. = There is some book (stuff) on the table. (very odd in practice, but grammatically like “some book-material”)

Here the meaning is clearly “one whole tree and one whole house” → nominative puu, talo is correct.

Why does the verb stay singular (on) even though there are two things: a tree and a house?

In Finnish existential sentences, the verb is almost always 3rd person singular, even if there are multiple things:

• Pöydällä on kirja ja lehti.
  = There is a book and a magazine on the table.

You can say:

• Tässä maalauksessa ovat suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.

but that sounds more formal or stylistically marked. The normal, neutral version uses singular on.

So:

• Tässä maalauksessa on suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.
  is the most natural wording.

Could we say “Suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo ovat tässä maalauksessa” instead? What’s the difference?

Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct, but the focus changes.

1. Original (existential)
   Tässä maalauksessa on suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.

   • Focus: what is found in the painting
   • Typical for introducing new information: “In this painting (there is) …”

2. Alternative (normal subject–verb–location)
   Suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo ovat tässä maalauksessa.

   • Focus: where those already-known things are located
   • Sounds more like: “The large yellow tree and the small orange house are in this painting.”

So the original sentence is the natural choice when describing the contents of the painting for the first time.

Do the adjectives suuri, keltainen, pieni, oranssi have to match the noun in case and number?

Yes. In Finnish, adjectives agree with the noun in:

• case
• number
• often possessive suffixes (if any)

In the example:

• suuri keltainen puu
  
  • noun: puu (nominative singular)
  • adjectives: suuri, keltainen → also nominative singular
• pieni oranssi talo
  
  • noun: talo (nominative singular)
  • adjectives: pieni, oranssi → also nominative singular

If we change the case, everything changes together:

• Tässä maalauksessa on suuri keltaisenenn puu? → wrong
• Tässä maalauksessa on suuressa keltaisessa puussa… → also wrong structure here

Correct example with another case:

• Tämän maalauksen suuressa keltaisessa puussa on lintu.
  
  • suuressa keltaisessa puussa
    All three words share the same -ssa (inessive) ending.

Can you change the order of adjectives, for example say keltainen suuri puu instead of suuri keltainen puu?

You can change the order, but it often changes the emphasis or sounds a bit unusual.

• suuri keltainen puu
  
  • neutral: a large tree that is yellow
• keltainen suuri puu
  
  • puts slightly more focus on the yellow part first
  • can sound stylistic, poetic, or just a bit odd in everyday speech

In most neutral descriptions, size/shape adjectives like suuri, pieni tend to come before color adjectives:

• suuri keltainen talo
• pieni punainen auto

So suuri keltainen puu and pieni oranssi talo are the most natural orders here.

Why is there no word for “a” or “the” before puu and talo? How do we know if it’s “a” or “the”?

Finnish has no articles (no “a/an” or “the”). The difference is usually understood from:

• context
• word order (especially existential vs. normal subject–verb order)
• sometimes case

In this existential sentence:

• Tässä maalauksessa on suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.

the default English translation is “a large yellow tree and a small orange house”, because we’re introducing them as new information.

If we had already been talking about the tree and house, and then said:

• Suuri keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo ovat tässä maalauksessa.

that context would more likely suggest “the large yellow tree and the small orange house”.

So Finnish leaves it to context; English adds a/the when translating.

What’s the difference between suuri and iso? Could we say iso keltainen puu instead?

Both suuri and iso mean “big / large”, and you could absolutely say:

• Tässä maalauksessa on iso keltainen puu ja pieni oranssi talo.

Difference:

• suuri
  • a bit more formal / written / neutral
  • common in written descriptions, literature, formal speech
• iso
  • more colloquial and very common in everyday speech
  • often used instead of suuri in spoken Finnish

In this sentence, suuri fits nicely because the style is a bit like a picture description; but iso would also be correct and natural.

Why is it oranssi talo, not something like oranssinen talo?

In modern standard Finnish, oranssi is the usual adjective for the color orange:

• oranssi pallo = orange ball
• oranssi talo = orange house

There is a pattern where some color words can have an -inen form (e.g. punainen, sininen), but with oranssi the basic, common adjective form is just oranssi; oranssinen is rare and often feels nonstandard or dialectal.

So:

• pieni oranssi talo = a small orange house is the normal, correct form.