Learn Hardcore Finnish: Hyvä palaute tekee minut itsevarmaksi, mutta yritän olla myös huolellinen. - Good feedback makes me confident, but I try to be careful as well.

minä = I (subject form, nominative)
minut = me (object, total/accusative)
minua = me (object, partitive; often for incomplete actions, feelings, or quantities)

In this sentence, hyvä palaute (good feedback) completely affects me: it makes me (become) confident. That’s seen as a complete result, so Finnish uses the total object: minut.

If you used minua instead (Hyvä palaute tekee minua itsevarmaksi), it would sound wrong or at least very odd to a native speaker in this context.

Why does itsevarmaksi end in -ksi?

The ending -ksi is the translative case. It often expresses a change of state, something like “into X” or “to become X”.

itsevarma = confident (basic form)
itsevarmaksi = into a confident person / to a confident state

So tehdä minut itsevarmaksi literally means “to make me into (someone) confident”, which in natural English is just “make me confident”.

This same pattern appears in many similar sentences:

Se tekee minut iloiseksi. – It makes me happy.
Opinnot tekevät sinusta lääkärin. – Studies make you a doctor.
Maalaan seinän valkoiseksi. – I paint the wall white.

Could I say Hyvä palaute tekee minusta itsevarman instead of minut itsevarmaksi?

Yes, that’s also grammatically correct, but the construction is slightly different:

tekee minut itsevarmaksi
- minut = object, accusative
- itsevarmaksi = translative (change of state)
tekee minusta itsevarman
- minusta = elative case (“from me” → “out of me”)
- itsevarman = object (accusative form of the adjective)

Both can express roughly the same meaning: Good feedback makes me confident.

Subtle feel:

minut itsevarmaksi is very common for “making/turning X into Y”.
minusta itsevarman also works but can sound just a bit more like “makes (someone) out of me” in a conceptual sense.

In everyday speech, tekee minut itsevarmaksi is very natural.

Why is hyvä in its basic form instead of hyvän or something else?

Hyvä palaute is the subject of the sentence:

Hyvä palaute = good feedback (nominative)
tekee = makes
minut itsevarmaksi = me confident (object + result)

Subjects in Finnish usually appear in the nominative case (basic form), so you get:

Hyvä palaute tekee… – Good feedback makes…
Pitkä päivä väsyttää minut. – A long day tires me.
Kova tuuli kaatoi puun. – A strong wind knocked the tree down.

You would use forms like hyvää palautetta when palaute is an object, not the subject (for instance: Sain hyvää palautetta – I received good feedback).

Why is there no explicit I before yritän?

In Finnish, the personal ending on the verb already tells you who the subject is, so the subject pronoun (minä, sinä, etc.) can usually be dropped.

yritän ends in -n, which marks first person singular: “I try”.
So yritän olla clearly means “I try to be”, even without minä.

You can include minä for emphasis or contrast:

Minä yritän olla myös huolellinen. – I (as opposed to someone else) try to be careful too.

But in neutral, normal sentences, leaving it out is more natural.

Why is olla in its basic form and not something like olen in yritän olla myös huolellinen?

After certain verbs like yrittää (to try), the next verb is put in the 1st infinitive (the dictionary/basic form), not conjugated:

yritän olla = I try to be
haluan mennä = I want to go
aion oppia = I’m going to learn

If you said yritän olen, it would be ungrammatical. The idea is that yritän is the only conjugated verb here; olla depends on it and stays in the infinitive.

What exactly does huolellinen mean, and how is it different from varovainen or tarkka?

Huolellinen means careful, thorough, diligent in the sense of doing things properly and attentively, often with focus on quality and accuracy:

huolellinen työ – careful, thorough work
huolellinen opiskelija – diligent student

Comparison:

varovainen = careful, cautious (focused on avoiding danger or risk)
- Olen varovainen liikenteessä. – I’m careful in traffic.
tarkka = precise, exact; also picky in some contexts
- tarkka mittaus – precise measurement
- Hän on tarkka rahoistaan. – He/she is careful with money.

In yritän olla myös huolellinen, the speaker means they try to be thorough and meticulous in what they do, not just confident.

Where can myös go in the sentence, and does changing the position change the meaning?

Myös means also / too, and its position can shift emphasis.

Original:

… mutta yritän olla myös huolellinen.
- Neutral: but I also try to be careful.

Some variants:

… mutta myös yritän olla huolellinen.
- Emphasises also the trying, e.g. “I also make an effort to be careful.”
- Feels a bit marked; you’d use this for contrast.
… mutta yritän myös olla huolellinen.
- Very natural; emphasises that being careful is another thing you try (in addition to something else).
… mutta yritän olla huolellinen myös.
- Possible, but in many contexts sounds slightly clunky or spoken-style.

All are understandable, but yritän myös olla huolellinen and yritän olla myös huolellinen are the most typical. The core meaning stays the same; word order mostly shifts what is highlighted.

Is palaute countable in Finnish, and how would I say “a piece of feedback”?

Palaute is usually treated as a mass/uncountable noun, similar to English feedback.

Sain paljon palautetta. – I received a lot of feedback.
Hyvä palaute – good feedback (not “a feedback”).

If you need to talk about individual items of feedback, you can say for example:

yksi palaute – one instance of feedback (used especially in some formal/technical contexts)
pala palautetta – a piece of feedback
kommentti – a comment (often the most natural way to refer to a single feedback item)

So Hyvä palaute tekee minut itsevarmaksi is best understood as “Good feedback (in general / when I receive it) makes me confident.”

Why is mutta used here instead of ja? Is the contrast strong?

Mutta means but, introducing a contrast or qualification.

The idea is:

Good feedback makes me confident, but (in spite of that, or in addition to that) I also try to be careful.

Using ja (and) would sound more neutral, just listing two facts:

Hyvä palaute tekee minut itsevarmaksi, ja yritän olla myös huolellinen.
- “Good feedback makes me confident, and I also try to be careful.”

With mutta, there is a small implied contrast, like:

Confidence might make some people less careful, but I still try to be careful.

Could I flip the parts and say Yritän myös olla huolellinen, mutta hyvä palaute tekee minut itsevarmaksi?

Yes, that’s grammatically fine. Finnish word order is fairly flexible for clauses joined by mutta.

Differences:

Original: Hyvä palaute tekee minut itsevarmaksi, mutta yritän olla myös huolellinen.
- Starts from the cause/effect of feedback, then adds the personal effort.
Flipped: Yritän myös olla huolellinen, mutta hyvä palaute tekee minut itsevarmaksi.
- Starts from your own effort, then contrasts it with the impact of good feedback.

The choice is mostly about what you want to highlight first. Both versions are natural.