Ruuhka kestää pitkään iltapäivällä.

The rush lasts for a long time in the afternoon.

Breakdown of Ruuhka kestää pitkään iltapäivällä.

• -llä: on
• iltapäivä: the afternoon
• kestää: to last
• pitkään: for a long time
• ruuhka: the traffic jam

Questions & Answers about Ruuhka kestää pitkään iltapäivällä.

Why do we use kestää here instead of something with olla (to be), like saying “the rush hour is long”?

In Finnish, length or duration of an event is usually expressed with the verb kestää (to last), not with olla.

• Ruuhka kestää pitkään.
  = The congestion / rush period lasts a long time.

If you said something like ruuhka on pitkä, it would sound more like “the traffic jam is long (in distance)” – describing physical length on the road, not how long it continues in time.

So:

• kestää = how long something continues in time
• olla pitkä = how long something is as an object (a long road, a long line, etc.)

What form is pitkään and why does it end in -än?

Pitkään is the illative singular form of the adjective pitkä (long), used adverbially.

• Base adjective: pitkä (long)
• Illative singular: pitkään (literally “into long” → idiomatically “for a long time”)

Finnish often uses case forms of adjectives and nouns as adverbs. In expressions of duration, the illative can answer kuinka kauan? (for how long?).

So:

• Ruuhka kestää pitkään.
  Literally: “The congestion lasts for long”
  Meaning: “The congestion lasts a long time.”

This is why you see -än: it’s the illative ending on pitkä, used as an adverb.

Could we use pitkästi instead of pitkään?

No, pitkästi is not used in standard Finnish to mean “for a long time”.

For duration, Finnish uses:

• pitkään = for a long time
• kauan / kauan aikaa = for a long time

Pitkästi is either very rare or dialectal and does not function as a normal time adverb. If you want to say “for a long time,” stick to pitkään or kauan:

• Ruuhka kestää pitkään.
• Ruuhka kestää kauan.

Both are correct and natural.

What is the difference between pitkään and kauan in this sentence?

Both can usually be used here and both mean “for a long time,” but there is a slight nuance:

• pitkään
  Often feels a bit more neutral or factual: the duration is long in an objective sense.
• kauan
  Slightly more subjective; can sound like “it feels long, it’s too long, it drags on”.

Examples:

• Ruuhka kestää pitkään iltapäivällä.
  The rush lasts a long time in the afternoon (stating the fact).
• Ruuhka kestää kauan iltapäivällä.
  The rush lasts a long time in the afternoon (often with a hint that it’s annoyingly long).

In many contexts, they are interchangeable, and the difference is small.

Why is iltapäivällä in the form with -llä (adessive)? Why not something else?

Iltapäivällä is adessive singular of iltapäivä (afternoon):

• Base noun: iltapäivä
• Adessive: iltapäivällä = “in/at/during the afternoon”

Finnish often uses the adessive case (-lla / -llä) to express time when something happens, especially with parts of the day:

• aamulla = in the morning
• päivällä = in the daytime
• iltapäivällä = in the afternoon
• illalla = in the evening
• yöllä = at night

So iltapäivällä naturally means “(during) the afternoon.” It’s the usual way to say “in the afternoon,” not a direct preposition like in English.

What would be the difference between iltapäivällä and iltapäivisin?

Both relate to “afternoon,” but they differ in meaning:

• iltapäivällä
  Refers to a specific afternoon (this afternoon, that afternoon, some particular afternoon understood from context).
  → “in the afternoon (on that day / at that time)”

• iltapäivisin
  Is a frequentative time form: “in the afternoons (regularly, habitually, usually).”
  → “in the afternoons” (as a repeated pattern)

Compare:

• Ruuhka kestää pitkään iltapäivällä.
  The congestion lasts a long time in the afternoon (on that afternoon / typically on a given day).

• Ruuhka kestää pitkään iltapäivisin.
  The congestion lasts a long time in the afternoons (as a regular pattern on many days).

Can we change the word order to Iltapäivällä ruuhka kestää pitkään? Does it change the meaning?

Yes, the word order can be changed:

• Ruuhka kestää pitkään iltapäivällä.
• Iltapäivällä ruuhka kestää pitkään.

Both are grammatically correct and mean the same in basic content.

The difference is in emphasis / information structure:

• Starting with Ruuhka: neutral subject-first order, stating what the congestion does.
• Starting with Iltapäivällä: emphasizes the time frame. It answers a question like Milloin ruuhka kestää pitkään? (When does the congestion last a long time?)

Finnish word order is flexible, but moving elements to the front usually highlights them.

Why is ruuhka in the basic form with no ending? What case is it?

Ruuhka here is in the nominative singular, which is the basic dictionary form.

In this sentence, ruuhka is the subject of the verb kestää:

• ruuhka (subject, nominative)
• kestää (verb)
• pitkään (adverbial of duration)
• iltapäivällä (adverbial of time)

You would not use genitive (ruuhkan) here, because kestää in the “to last” meaning does not take a direct object that would be in the genitive or partitive; it just describes how the subject behaves over time.

Why not say ruuhka kestää pitkää instead of pitkään?

Pitkää is the partitive form of pitkä (used to modify partitive nouns), not the adverbial form.

• pitkää tietä = (of) a long road (adjective + partitive noun)
• pitkään = for a long time (adverbial illative form)

In ruuhka kestää pitkään, there is no partitive noun for pitkää to modify. Instead, we need an adverb that describes the verb kestää: how it lasts. That role is filled by pitkään, not pitkää.

So:

• Ruuhka kestää pitkään. ✅
• Ruuhka kestää pitkää. ❌ (ungrammatical in this meaning)

What kind of verb is kestää? Can it also mean “to endure” something?

Yes, kestää has at least two common uses:

1. Intransitive: “to last” (span of time)

   • Ruuhka kestää pitkään.
     The congestion lasts a long time.

   Here, kestää does not take an object; it simply tells how long the subject continues.

2. Transitive: “to endure, to tolerate, to stand”

   • En kestä tätä ruuhkaa.
     I can’t stand this traffic jam.

   Here, kestää takes a direct object (tätä ruuhkaa) and means “endure / tolerate”.

In your sentence, it is clearly the “to last” meaning (intransitive).

How would the sentence look in the past tense?

To make it past tense, you change kestää → kesti (3rd person, past):

• Ruuhka kesti pitkään iltapäivällä.
  = The congestion lasted a long time in the afternoon.

Everything else stays the same; ruuhka, pitkään, and iltapäivällä don’t change for tense.

Is there anything special about the word iltapäivä itself?

Yes, iltapäivä is a compound noun:

• ilta = evening
• päivä = day

Together iltapäivä literally means “evening-day,” but idiomatically it corresponds to English afternoon (roughly from around 12:00 until early evening).

Its cases are formed normally, e.g.:

• Nominative: iltapäivä
• Adessive: iltapäivällä (in the afternoon)
• Inessive: iltapäivässä (inside the afternoon – rarely used literally; mostly in special contexts)
• etc.

In your sentence, iltapäivällä is just the standard way to say “in the afternoon.”