Learn Hardcore Finnish: Hän tykkää lämmitellä rauhassa kotona videon kanssa. - She/He likes to warm up calmly at home with a video.

tykätä is slightly more colloquial and very common in everyday speech.
pitää (when it means to like) is a bit more neutral and slightly more formal.

Examples:

Hän tykkää lämmitellä… – He/She likes to warm up…
Hän pitää lämmittelystä… – He/She likes warming up…

With nouns, they usually both take the elative case -sta/-stä:

Hän tykkää suklaasta.
Hän pitää suklaasta.
Both mean He/She likes chocolate.

With verbs, tykätä often takes the basic infinitive:

Hän tykkää lämmitellä. – He/She likes to warm up.

With pitää, you more often see a structure like:

Hän pitää siitä, että hän voi lämmitellä. – He/She likes it that he/she can warm up.

So in your sentence, tykkää is natural, conversational Finnish. Using pitää would require a slightly different structure.

What exactly is lämmitellä, and how is it different from lämmittää or lämmetä?

All three are related to the idea of warming, but they differ in grammar and nuance:

lämmittää – to heat, to warm (something)
Transitive verb: someone/something does the warming.
- Hän lämmittää saunan. – He/She heats the sauna.
lämmetä – to get warm
Intransitive verb: something becomes warm by itself.
- Sauna lämpenee. – The sauna is getting warm.
lämmitellä – to warm up, to be warming oneself (a bit, for a while)
This is a kind of frequentative / iterative form. It often suggests:
- a leisurely, ongoing action
- warming yourself up (for comfort or as a warm-up before exercise)
- not just a quick, single act

So Hän tykkää lämmitellä… is more like He/She enjoys the activity of warming up (e.g. stretching, gentle exercise, or just getting cosy), rather than He/She heats something up once.

What grammatical form is lämmitellä here?

In Hän tykkää lämmitellä…, lämmitellä is the basic (A-) infinitive form of the verb.

Key points:

Dictionary form: lämmitellä
Conjugated form (3rd person singular): hän lämmittelee

When tykätä means to like to do something, it often takes a verb in the basic infinitive:

Hän tykkää lukea. – He/She likes to read.
Hän tykkää juosta. – He/She likes to run.
Hän tykkää lämmitellä. – He/She likes to warm up.

What is rauhassa grammatically, and why not something like rauhallisesti?

Rauhassa is:

the inessive case (the -ssa/-ssä “in” case)
of the noun rauha (peace).

Literally it means in peace, but it functions like an adverb: peacefully, undisturbed, without being bothered.

So:

Hän tykkää lämmitellä rauhassa…
≈ He/She likes to warm up in peace / quietly / without disturbance.

You could say rauhallisesti, which is the regular adverb from the adjective rauhallinen (peaceful), but rauhassa is the much more idiomatic, everyday choice in this type of sentence.

Rauhassa often implies no one is disturbing him/her, no rush, no stress, more strongly than just peacefully.

What is the difference between kotona, kotiin, and kotoa?

All three come from koti (home), but use different local cases:

kotona – at home
Inessive case (-ssa/-ssä type: in/at):
- Hän on kotona. – He/She is at home.
kotiin – to home
Illative case (into, to a place):
- Hän menee kotiin. – He/She is going home.
kotoa – from home
Elative case (out of, from inside):
- Hän lähtee kotoa. – He/She leaves home.

In your sentence, kotona is correct because it describes location (where he/she likes to warm up): at home.

Why is it videon kanssa and not just video kanssa?

The postposition kanssa (with) always takes its noun in the genitive case.

Nominative: video
Genitive: videon

So:

❌ video kanssa – incorrect
✅ videon kanssa – with a/the video

More examples:

ystävä → ystävän kanssa – with a friend
lapsi → lapsen kanssa – with a child
kissa → kissan kanssa – with the cat

So videon kanssa is just video in the genitive, because kanssa requires it.

Does videon kanssa mean literally with a video, like a companion, or using / while watching a video?

Literally, videon kanssa is with a video. But kanssa is often used more broadly, close to English with or using.

Depending on context, videon kanssa can suggest:

warming up while following an exercise video
warming up while a video is playing
warming up with the help of a video (e.g. tutorial)

So in natural English, you might translate the idea as:

He/She likes to warm up at home in peace, following a video.
…at home in peace, using a video.

The exact nuance depends on the situation, but it’s not about a person here; it’s about an activity done accompanied by / with the help of a video.

Can the word order of rauhassa kotona videon kanssa be changed? For example, can I say kotona rauhassa videon kanssa?

Yes, Finnish word order is quite flexible, especially with adverbials (manner, place, time, etc.). All of these are possible and grammatical:

Hän tykkää lämmitellä rauhassa kotona videon kanssa.
Hän tykkää lämmitellä kotona rauhassa videon kanssa.
Hän tykkää lämmitellä kotona videon kanssa rauhassa.

The meaning stays almost the same, but the focus / rhythm changes slightly:

Earlier position = a bit more emphasis.
Later position = a bit less prominent.

The original order:

rauhassa (manner: in peace)
kotona (place: at home)
videon kanssa (accompaniment/tool: with a video)

is natural and typical: manner → place → accompaniment. But reordering them is not wrong; it just sounds a bit different in emphasis.

Could you drop hän and just say Tykkää lämmitellä rauhassa kotona videon kanssa?

Yes, Finnish often omits the subject pronoun when it’s clear from context, because the verb form already shows the person.

Hän tykkää lämmitellä…
Tykkää lämmitellä…

Both are possible. The second version:

sounds a bit more informal
strongly relies on context (we must already know who is being talked about)

In many written contexts (especially neutral or formal text), keeping hän is preferred for clarity. In diaries, casual storytelling, or when the subject has just been mentioned, dropping hän is completely natural.

Is hän gendered, like he or she?

No. Hän is gender‑neutral.

It can mean:

he
she

Finnish doesn’t mark grammatical gender in pronouns (or in adjectives, articles, etc.). If you need to specify the person’s gender, you do it by adding other words (like man, woman, boy, girl), not by changing the pronoun.

So in English you have to choose he or she based on context, but in Finnish hän itself is neutral.

Could I say Hän tykkää lämmittelystä rauhassa kotona videon kanssa instead of Hän tykkää lämmitellä…?

Yes, but the structure and nuance change a bit.

Hän tykkää lämmitellä…
Uses the verb infinitive. Focus: the activity of doing the warming up.
Hän tykkää lämmittelystä…
Uses a noun (lämmittely / lämmittelyä / lämmittelystä), basically “the warming up”. Focus: the activity as a thing, more like He/She likes (the) warming up…

Both are understandable. The infinitive (lämmitellä) feels more direct and is very common in speech.
The -minen / -lY noun (lämmittely, etc.) can feel a bit more nominal or formal, and is used more in contexts where activities are being listed, defined, or talked about as things.

Is there any difference in meaning between Hän tykkää lämmitellä rauhassa kotona and Hän tykkää lämmitellä rauhassa kotona videon kanssa?

Yes, videon kanssa adds an extra detail:

Hän tykkää lämmitellä rauhassa kotona.
He/She likes to warm up at home in peace.
→ We only know where and how.
Hän tykkää lämmitellä rauhassa kotona videon kanssa.
He/She likes to warm up at home in peace with a video.
→ Now we also know with what / using what (a video, probably a workout or similar).

So videon kanssa narrows down the way he/she is warming up.

How are lämmitellä and lämmittää pronounced, especially with the double consonants?

Key pronunciation points:

Stress is always on the first syllable:
- LÄM-mi-tel-lä
- LÄM-mittää
Double consonants (mm, tt, ll) are longer than single ones. They are held a little longer, and that can change meaning in Finnish.

Approximate breakdown:

lämmitellä: LÄM‑mi‑tel‑lä
- mm is clearly long: läm‑mi (not lä-mi)
- ll is also long at the end: tel‑lä
lämmittää: LÄM‑mit‑tää
- mm long
- tt long
- ää is a long vowel (like a longer “a” as in cat but more front and clear)

So be careful to actually lengthen the double consonants and double vowels; Finnish listeners hear a difference between long and short sounds.