Questions & Answers about Tämä kappale on kaunis.
Word by word:
Tämä – this
- Demonstrative pronoun/adjective.
- Dictionary form: tämä (nominative singular).
kappale – piece / song / item / chapter / paragraph, depending on context
- Here probably piece (of music) or song.
- Dictionary form: kappale (nominative singular noun).
on – is
- 3rd person singular present of the verb olla (to be).
- Dictionary form: olla.
kaunis – beautiful / pretty
- Adjective in basic form.
- Dictionary form: kaunis (nominative singular adjective).
Grammatically the structure is: [subject] Tämä kappale + [verb] on + [predicative adjective] kaunis.
Finnish does not have articles like English a, an, or the at all.
Definiteness and specificity are expressed mainly by:
Context
- If you’re already talking about a certain song, kappale will naturally mean the song.
Demonstratives like tämä, tuo, se
- Tämä kappale = this (particular) piece/song.
- Without tämä, Kappale on kaunis could mean A/The piece is beautiful, depending on context.
So Tämä kappale on kaunis can be understood in English as This piece is beautiful or This song is beautiful, but Finnish does not need any article word.
Kappale is quite a flexible noun. Common meanings:
- Piece (of something) – a piece of cake, a piece of text, a section.
- Musical piece / track / song – especially in talk about recordings or playlists.
- Chapter / section / paragraph – in texts.
In music contexts:
- kappale – neutral word for a musical piece or track.
- laulu – literally song, usually something with singing.
- biisi – colloquial, from English piece / beat, used like song / track.
- teos – a work in a more serious/classical or artistic sense.
So in a playlist or on the radio, Tämä kappale on kaunis very naturally means This track / this song is beautiful.
If you wanted to be explicit about a song with lyrics, you could also say:
- Tämä laulu on kaunis. – This song is beautiful.
Finnish has two common patterns with adjectives:
Attributive (adjective directly before the noun):
- kaunis kappale = a beautiful piece
- Used as part of a noun phrase, no verb on.
Predicative (adjective after olla):
- Tämä kappale on kaunis. = This piece is beautiful.
- Here kaunis describes the state of kappale through the verb on.
So:
- Tämä on kaunis kappale. = This is a beautiful piece. (adjective before noun)
- Tämä kappale on kaunis. = This piece is beautiful. (adjective after on)
Both are correct, but the structure and emphasis differ slightly, just like in English.
In Tämä kappale on kaunis, the adjective kaunis is:
- singular
- nominative case
- agreeing with the subject Tämä kappale (also singular nominative).
Some contrasts:
kaunis – nominative: used here as a predicative adjective:
- Kappale on kaunis. – The piece is beautiful.
kaunista – partitive: used in several other situations, for example:
- Musiikki on kaunista. – Music is beautiful. (mass noun)
- Kuuntelen kaunista musiikkia. – I listen to beautiful music.
kauniin – genitive: often “of a beautiful …”:
- kauniin kappaleen melodia – the melody of a beautiful piece
kauniina – essive: as beautiful / in a beautiful state:
- Hän seisoi siinä kauniina. – She stood there, beautiful / as a beautiful woman.
For the simple X is beautiful pattern with a countable noun subject in the basic form, you generally use nominative:
Tämä kappale on kaunis.
Yes, it’s the same verb form.
- on is the 3rd person singular present of olla (to be).
Here it’s a simple copula:
- Tämä kappale on kaunis. – This piece is beautiful.
In existential there is sentences, on is also used, but the word order changes:
- Pöydällä on kirja. – There is a book on the table.
(literally On the table is a book)
So on always comes from olla; the meaning depends on the structure, not on a different verb form.
You normally add an adverb before kaunis:
Common intensifiers:
- tosi – very, really (colloquial, very common)
- todella – really, truly
- erittäin – very, extremely (a bit more formal)
- hyvin – very (literally well, but often used like very)
- kovin – quite / very (more old-fashioned or dialectal in this sense)
Examples:
- Tämä kappale on tosi kaunis. – This piece is really beautiful.
- Tämä kappale on todella kaunis. – This piece is really/very beautiful.
- Tämä kappale on erittäin kaunis. – This piece is extremely / very beautiful.
The adverb usually goes immediately before the adjective.
You need to pluralize the demonstrative, the noun, and the verb; the adjective typically also agrees in plural nominative:
- Nämä kappaleet ovat kauniit.
- Nämä – these (plural of tämä)
- kappaleet – pieces/songs (nominative plural of kappale)
- ovat – are (3rd person plural of olla)
- kauniit – beautiful (nominative plural of kaunis)
Meaning: These pieces/songs are beautiful.
In real usage you may also see Nämä kappaleet ovat kauniita, with kauniita in the partitive plural; that has a slightly different nuance, but for a learner the safe basic pattern is to match the adjective with the subject in number and case: Nämä kappaleet ovat kauniit.
Finnish uses a special negative verb ei, and the main verb appears in a short form (the so‑called “connegative” form).
For 3rd person singular ei + olla:
- ei ole – is not / is no / there is not
So:
- Tämä kappale ei ole kaunis. – This piece is not beautiful.
Structure:
- Tämä kappale – subject
- ei – negative verb (3rd person, same form for he/she/it)
- ole – connegative form of olla
- kaunis – adjective
All three can be translated with this / that / it, but their use differs:
tämä – this, near the speaker:
- Tämä kappale on kaunis. – This piece (here / just mentioned by me) is beautiful.
tuo – that, visible but not close to the speaker (often closer to the listener or just “over there”):
- Tuo kappale on kaunis. – That piece (there) is beautiful.
se – it / that, already known from context, or not physically in view:
- Se kappale on kaunis. – That piece is beautiful (the one we’re talking about).
In conversation, once you’ve introduced something with tämä or tuo, you usually then refer back to it with se:
- Tämä kappale on kaunis. Se on minun suosikkini.
– This piece is beautiful. It is my favourite.
Yes. Kappale can mean:
- a paragraph or section in a text
- a chapter or part of a book
- a piece of writing
So in a literary context, Tämä kappale on kaunis could mean:
- This paragraph/section is beautiful.
- This passage is beautiful.
The exact English translation (piece, song, paragraph, section, passage) depends entirely on the context in which kappale is used.
Approximate guide:
Tämä – TAE-ma
- ä like a in cat
- stress on the first syllable: TÄ-mä
kappale – KAP-pa-leh
- double pp is a long consonant; hold it slightly longer: kap‑pa (not ka‑pa)
- e like e in get
- stress on KAP
on – on
- short o, like o in British hot
kaunis – roughly KOW-nis
- au is a diphthong like ow in cow, but shorter and smoother
- stress on KAU
Putting it together (primary stress always on the first syllable of each word):
- TÄ-mä KAP-pa-le on KAU-nis
In IPA (roughly): [ˈtæmɑ ˈkɑpːɑle on ˈkɑu̯nis].
Yes. Finnish allows some flexibility in word order to add emphasis.
Neutral:
- Tämä kappale on kaunis. – basic, neutral statement.
Emphasizing kaunis (that quality):
- Kaunis tämä kappale on. – Beautiful, this piece is.
(sounds a bit poetic or expressive)
Emphasizing tämä kappale (this particular one):
- Tämä kappale on se, joka on kaunis. – This piece is the one that is beautiful.
For everyday speech, stick with the neutral word order; the more marked orders are used for stylistic or emotional effect.