Learn Hardcore Finnish: Elokuvan jännitys jatkuu vielä kotona. - The excitement of the movie continues still at home.

In this sentence, elokuvan jännitys literally means “the movie’s suspense/excitement” or “the suspense of the movie.” Finnish uses the genitive to show this kind of ownership or association:

elokuvan jännitys = the movie’s suspense
kirjan nimi = the book’s name
musiikin ääni = the sound of the music

So the pattern is:

[thing in genitive] + [head noun in nominative]
elokuvan (genitive) + jännitys (nominative)

Why is jännitys in basic form (nominative), not jännitystä or something else?

Jännitys is the subject of the sentence, so it appears in the nominative singular.

The structure is:

Elokuvan jännitys – subject (the movie’s suspense)
jatkuu – verb (continues)
vielä kotona – adverbials

Finnish normally puts the subject in the nominative unless there is a special reason (like partitive subjects in some constructions). Here we’re talking about all the suspense of the movie as a whole, not “some suspense,” so nominative jännitys is natural.

If you said jännitystä, that would be partitive and would suggest something like an indefinite quantity of suspense, which doesn’t fit this sentence’s meaning.

What exactly does jännitys mean here? Is it “suspense” or “excitement”?

Jännitys can mean both:

suspense / tension (in a thriller, horror movie, etc.)
excitement / thrill (emotional arousal, being on edge)

In Elokuvan jännitys jatkuu vielä kotona, it suggests that the emotional intensity caused by the movie doesn’t end when the movie ends – you still feel tense / excited at home.

In English you might translate it depending on context as:

“The movie’s suspense continues even at home.”
“The movie’s excitement still continues at home.”

The Finnish word itself is neutral between those two English choices; context decides which translation sounds more natural.

Why is the verb jatkuu and not jatkaa?

Finnish has two related verbs:

jatkua (intransitive) = to continue (by itself)
- jännitys jatkuu – the suspense continues
jatkaa (transitive) = to continue something
- jatkan elokuvaa – I continue the movie
- jatkamme keskustelua – we continue the discussion

In Elokuvan jännitys jatkuu vielä kotona, jännitys is not doing something to anything; it is simply continuing as a state. So you must use jatkua → jatkuu (3rd person singular present):

Se jatkuu = It continues
Jännitys jatkuu = The suspense continues

Using jatkaa here would be incorrect, because that needs an object:

✗ Elokuvan jännitys jatkaa vielä kotona – ungrammatical
✓ Elokuvan jännitys jatkuu vielä kotona – correct

What tense and person is jatkuu?

Jatkuu is:

present tense
3rd person singular
of the verb jatkua (to continue)

In Finnish, present tense is used for:

events happening now
general truths/habits
things that are still ongoing (like English “is continuing” or “continues”)

So jatkuu can correspond to both:

“continues” (simple present)
“is continuing / keeps going” (present continuous)

Context decides how you translate it, but grammatically it’s just present tense.

What does vielä add to the sentence? Could we leave it out?

Vielä here means roughly “still / even (now/there)”.

Elokuvan jännitys jatkuu kotona.
= The movie’s suspense continues at home. (neutral statement)
Elokuvan jännitys jatkuu vielä kotona.
= The movie’s suspense still / even continues at home. (it lasts longer / further than you might expect)

So vielä suggests:

the suspense has not stopped yet, or
it extends further – all the way to when you are at home.

You can leave vielä out without making the sentence ungrammatical, but you lose that nuance of “still / even”.

Why is it kotona and not kotiin or kodissa?

All three are related to koti (home), but with different cases and meanings:

kotona – inessive: “at home” (location, being there)
kotiin – illative: “to home” (movement towards home)
kodissa – inessive of koti → kodissa: “in the home / in a home (as a building)”, more literal/physical

In this sentence:

jatkuu vielä kotona = “continues at home” – a state that exists while you are at home.

So:

kotona – correct here: place where the ongoing feeling exists
kotiin – would mean the suspense continues as you go home / to home, slightly different meaning
kodissa – would sound like “in the building that is a home,” more concrete and unusual for this emotional context

Hence kotona is the natural choice.

Why is the order elokuvan jännitys, not jännitys elokuvan?

In Finnish, when a genitive noun describes another noun, the usual and natural order is:

[genitive] + [head noun]

So:

elokuvan jännitys – the movie’s suspense
kissan häntä – the cat’s tail
museon ovi – the museum’s door

The pattern jännitys elokuvan would be wrong here; it doesn’t form a normal “X’s Y” structure and would sound ungrammatical in this meaning.

You could say something like:

elokuvassa on jännitystä – there is suspense in the movie

but that’s a different construction and a different sentence.

Can the word order of the whole sentence be changed?

Some elements can move, but not all orders are natural.

Grammatical and natural variants (with different emphasis):

Elokuvan jännitys jatkuu vielä kotona.
(neutral, most natural)
Vielä kotona elokuvan jännitys jatkuu.
(emphasizes “even/also at home”)
Kotona elokuvan jännitys jatkuu vielä.
(emphasizes “at home” and “still”)

But you cannot break up elokuvan jännitys:

✗ Jännitys elokuvan jatkuu vielä kotona. – not correct
✗ Elokuvan jatkuu jännitys vielä kotona. – not correct

Remember: elokuvan jännitys must stay together as one noun phrase (the subject).

Why doesn’t Finnish use anything like “the” here, as in “the movie’s suspense”?

Finnish has no articles (no “a/an” or “the”). Definiteness and specificity come from:

context
word order
case endings
sometimes demonstratives (like se = that/it)

So:

Elokuvan jännitys can mean “the movie’s suspense” or “the suspense of a movie”, depending on context.
You do not add any extra word to mark “the.”

English must choose a or the in translation, but Finnish simply doesn’t mark that distinction with a separate word.

If I wanted to say “The movie’s suspense no longer continues at home”, what would change?

Two main changes:

Negation of the verb
- jatkuu → ei jatku (negative + verb stem)
“No longer” is normally enää instead of vielä in negative sentences.

So:

Elokuvan jännitys ei enää jatku kotona.
= The movie’s suspense no longer continues at home.

Compare:

vielä – still / yet (in positive clauses)
enää – anymore / any longer (in negative clauses)

You generally avoid vielä in this meaning with a negative verb; you switch to enää.

Could the sentence also be said as “Se jatkuu vielä kotona”? What would se refer to?

Yes:

Se jatkuu vielä kotona.
= It continues still at home.

Here se (“it/that”) would refer back to elokuvan jännitys that was already mentioned in the previous context.

Typical usage:

Elokuvan jännitys on todella voimakasta. Se jatkuu vielä kotona.
“The movie’s suspense is really strong. It continues even at home.”

So:

Elokuvan jännitys jatkuu vielä kotona. – the subject is named explicitly
Se jatkuu vielä kotona. – the subject is referred to with a pronoun, understood from context

Both are grammatically fine; it just depends on what you said in the previous sentence and what you want to emphasize.