Learn Hardcore Finnish: Tämä lyhyt ohjevideo näyttää, miten ääntämistä voi harjoitella kotona. - This short tutorial video shows how you can practice pronunciation at home.

In Finnish, you normally put a comma before a subordinate clause, and clauses often start with words like että, jotta, koska, vaikka, kun, jos, miten, missä, etc.

Tämä lyhyt ohjevideo näyttää = main clause
miten ääntämistä voi harjoitella kotona = subordinate clause (“how one can practise pronunciation at home”)

So the comma marks the boundary between the main clause and the subordinate “how”-clause. Unlike English, where the comma is usually not used here (“This short instructional video shows how you can practise pronunciation at home”), Finnish spelling rules require it.

What exactly does Tämä lyhyt ohjevideo mean, and why is there no article like “a” or “the”?

Tämä = “this” (demonstrative pronoun/adjective)
lyhyt = “short”
ohjevideo = “instructional video / tutorial video”

So Tämä lyhyt ohjevideo literally is “this short instructional video”.

Finnish doesn’t have articles like a/an or the. Definiteness or indefiniteness is usually understood from context, word order, and demonstratives like tämä (“this”), se (“that / it”), yksi (“one, a certain”), etc. Here tämä already gives the “definite” feeling of “this specific video”.

Why is ohjevideo written as one word and not as two separate words?

Finnish very often combines nouns into a single compound word:

ohje = “instruction, guidance”
video = “video”

Combined, ohjevideo = “instructional video, tutorial video”.

Writing it as two words (ohje video) would look incorrect and feel like you’re saying “instruction video” as two unrelated nouns. In Finnish, if one noun describes or specifies another, it is usually written as one compound word (e.g. koulubussi “school bus”, kahvikuppi “coffee cup”, opiskelijakortti “student card”).

What form is näyttää, and why is there no separate word for “it” or “this video” as a subject?

Näyttää here is:

verb: näyttää = “to show”
person & tense: 3rd person singular, present (“shows”)

The subject of the verb is Tämä lyhyt ohjevideo, so the full structure is:

Tämä lyhyt ohjevideo (subject)
näyttää (verb)
miten ääntämistä voi harjoitella kotona (object clause: “how you can practise pronunciation at home”)

Finnish doesn’t need a separate pronoun like “it” when the subject is already clearly expressed as a noun phrase. English might say “This short tutorial video *shows …”; Finnish does the same, just without an extra *se or se video in front of the verb.

Why is it miten and not kuinka here? Are they different?

Both miten and kuinka can often be translated as “how”, and in many contexts they are interchangeable:

miten se toimii? / kuinka se toimii? = “how does it work?”

In this sentence, miten ääntämistä voi harjoitella kotona could quite naturally also be:

kuinka ääntämistä voi harjoitella kotona

Subtle tendencies (not strict rules):

miten is very common in spoken and written language for “how”.
kuinka can sound a bit more formal, literary, or rhetorical in some contexts, but is also perfectly normal.

So miten here is simply the common everyday choice; there is no special grammatical reason why kuinka would be wrong.

Why is ääntämistä in that form, and not ääntäminen?

The base noun is:

ääntäminen = “pronunciation”

In the sentence, we have:

ääntämistä = partitive singular of ääntäminen

Why partitive?

The verb harjoitella (“to practise”) usually takes its object in the partitive case, especially when you are practising an activity or skill in general, not a single, clearly “bounded” instance. So:

harjoitella ääntämistä = “to practise pronunciation (in general)”

If you said harjoitella ääntäminen, it would sound odd or wrong; Finns expect the partitive here. The partitive often expresses:

an uncompleted process
an indefinite amount
“some” of something
or, as here, a general ongoing activity/skill

What does voi harjoitella mean exactly, and who is the subject of voi?

voi is the 3rd person singular of voida = “can, be able to”
harjoitella is the infinitive of “to practise”

Together voi harjoitella = “(one) can practise / (you) can practise”.

There is no explicit subject word like “you” or “one”. In Finnish, a generic or impersonal subject is often left implicit. Here it’s understood as:

“you (people in general) can practise”
or “one can practise”

So the structure is:

miten = how
ääntämistä = pronunciation (object, in partitive)
voi = can
harjoitella = practise
kotona = at home

→ “how (one/you) can practise pronunciation at home”.

Why do we say voi harjoitella instead of just harjoitella (“how to practise pronunciation at home”)?

In Finnish, both patterns are possible, but they have different feels:

miten ääntämistä voi harjoitella kotona
= “how (one) can practise pronunciation at home”
– neutral, very common wording
– emphasises the possibility / ways of doing it
miten harjoitella ääntämistä kotona
= literally “how to practise pronunciation at home”
– also grammatical, but sounds more like an instruction title or a very direct “how-to” heading

In normal descriptive sentences with näyttää, Finns very frequently use voi + infinitive:

Video näyttää, miten tehtävää voi ratkaista.
“The video shows how one can solve the exercise.”

So the voi here makes the sentence sound natural and fluent in standard Finnish.

Why is the word order miten ääntämistä voi harjoitella kotona and not something like “miten voi harjoitella ääntämistä kotona”?

Both orders are possible and grammatical:

miten ääntämistä voi harjoitella kotona
miten voi harjoitella ääntämistä kotona

Finnish word order is fairly flexible, especially inside clauses. The most neutral version many Finns might first think of is:

miten voi harjoitella ääntämistä kotona

Putting ääntämistä earlier, as in the original sentence, can slightly highlight what is being practised:

“how pronunciation can be practised at home”

But in everyday use, the difference is very small, more about rhythm and subtle emphasis than about meaning. Both would be well understood as “how you can practise pronunciation at home”.

What does kotona mean exactly, and how is it different from koti or kotiin?

The base noun:

koti = “home” (dictionary form)

Common forms:

kotona = “at home” (inessive case: “in/at a place where you already are”)
kotiin = “(to) home” (illative case: movement towards home, “to(wards) a place”)
kodissa = “in the home/house” (more literally “inside the house”)

In this sentence:

harjoitella kotona = “practise at home”

So kotona expresses your location (where the practising happens), not movement. If you said kotiin, it would mean practising to home, which doesn’t make sense here.