Learn Hardcore Finnish: Näen pientä edistystä, kun korjaan omia virheitäni ja luen ystävien viestejä. - I see a bit of progress when I correct my own mistakes and read my friends’ messages.

The amount is partial / uncompleted: you are seeing some progress, not all the progress or a clearly delimited amount.
With verbs like nähdä (to see), huomata (to notice), Finnish often uses the partitive when what you see is a non‑complete, non‑counted quantity.

Pieni edistys would sound more like “a small, separate piece of progress” as a whole, clearly delimited thing, which is not what you usually mean here. Pientä edistystä corresponds more to “a bit of progress / some progress” in English.

What exactly is the function of kun in this sentence, and how is it different from koska or jos?

Here kun means roughly “when(ever)” / “as”:

Näen pientä edistystä, kun korjaan… ja luen…
≈ “I see some progress when / as I correct my mistakes and read my friends’ messages.”

Nuances:

kun
- temporal: when(ever) something happens
- can also be causal in some contexts (“since / as”), but here it’s mainly time‑related.
koska
- mainly causal: “because”
- Näen pientä edistystä, koska korjaan virheitäni… = “I see some progress because I correct my mistakes…”
jos
- conditional: “if”
- Näen pientä edistystä, jos korjaan virheitäni… = “I see some progress if I correct my mistakes…”

So kun focuses on the time/occasion, not on explicit cause or condition, even though in meaning there is of course a causal feeling in the background.

Why is there a comma before kun?

In Finnish, subordinate clauses (like a kun‑clause) are normally separated from the main clause by a comma, regardless of order:

Main clause first:
Näen pientä edistystä, kun korjaan…
Subordinate clause first:
Kun korjaan omia virheitäni ja luen ystävien viestejä, näen pientä edistystä.

So the comma is there because kun korjaan omia virheitäni ja luen ystävien viestejä is a subordinate clause (a “when” clause), not because of a pause in spoken language.

Why do we say korjaan omia virheitäni and not just korjaan virheitäni or korjaan virheeni?

Breakdown:

korjaan – I correct
virheitäni – “my mistakes”, partitive plural
- possessive -ni
omia – “my own”, partitive plural to match virheitäni

Forms and meanings:

korjaan virheitäni
– “I correct my mistakes” (some of them, in general)
korjaan omia virheitäni
– literally “I correct my own mistakes”
– omia adds emphasis: my own, not other people’s
korjaan virheeni
– “I correct my mistakes” with virheeni as a whole, complete set (no partitive)
– implies a more complete or specific set of mistakes.

In this sentence, partitive plural (virheitäni, omia) suggests an ongoing, partial activity: you are correcting some of your own mistakes over time, not a single, closed list of them. Omia adds a contrast: it’s about your mistakes, not someone else’s.

Why do we need both omia and -ni in virheitäni? Isn’t that “my own mistakes” twice?

They have different roles:

virheitäni = virhe (mistake) + -itä (partitive plural) + -ni (my)
→ “my mistakes”
omia = “own”, matching in case/number: partitive plural to agree with virheitä.

So:

virheitäni tells whose mistakes (mine).
omia adds emphasis / contrast: my own (not yours, not someone else’s).

You can say:

korjaan virheitäni – perfectly correct, slightly more neutral.
korjaan omia virheitäni – emphasizes that the focus is on your own mistakes.

Why is it ystävien viestejä and not something like ystävieni viestit?

Structure:

ystävien – genitive plural of ystävä → “of (the) friends”
viestejä – partitive plural of viesti → “(some) messages”

So ystävien viestejä = “some messages of friends” / “some messages from friends”.

Alternatives:

ystävieni viestejä
- ystävieni is another genitive plural form with the possessive -ni (“my friends’”).
- Means “some messages from my friends”.
ystävieni viestit
- viestit = messages in nominative plural (a whole set).
- Sounds more like “(all) the messages of my friends” as a complete group.

In the original sentence, viestejä in the partitive plural suggests you’re reading some amount of messages (not necessarily all), which matches the “some progress” idea.

Why is viestejä in the partitive plural and not viestit?

viesti (message) → viestejä (partitive plural)

Reasons:

Indefinite or partial amount: you’re not reading a clearly defined set like “all the messages” – just some messages.
With activity verbs like lukea (to read), the partitive is common when the action is viewed as ongoing / not completed or the object is not fully delimited.

Compare:

Luen ystävien viestejä.
– I read / I’m reading some messages from friends. (open‑ended)
Luen ystävien viestit.
– I will read / I am reading the messages from friends (a known, complete set).

In this context the open‑ended, ongoing feel of viestejä is more natural.

Could the word order be Kun korjaan omia virheitäni ja luen ystävien viestejä, näen pientä edistystä? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, that word order is perfectly correct:

Kun korjaan omia virheitäni ja luen ystävien viestejä, näen pientä edistystä.

Meaning-wise it is practically the same. The difference is mainly information structure / emphasis:

Original: Näen pientä edistystä, kun…
– starts by stating the result (seeing progress).
Reordered: Kun korjaan… ja luen…, näen pientä edistystä.
– starts by setting the condition/time frame, then states the result.

Both are natural; which one you choose depends on what you want to emphasize first in discourse.

Why is the tense just present (näen, korjaan, luen) when in English we might say “I see progress when I’m correcting and reading”?

Finnish present tense covers:

English simple present: “I correct, I read, I see”
English present continuous: “I am correcting, I am reading, I am seeing (I see)”

Context decides how it is interpreted. Here:

Näen pientä edistystä, kun korjaan… ja luen…
can mean:
- “I see some progress when I correct… and read…”
- or “I see some progress when I’m correcting… and (I’m) reading…”

If you wanted past, you would change all verbs to past:

Näin pientä edistystä, kun korjasin omia virheitäni ja luin ystävien viestejä.
– “I saw some progress when I corrected my own mistakes and read my friends’ messages.”

Could I say Näen vähäistä edistystä instead of pientä edistystä? Is there a difference?

Both are grammatically correct but the nuance differs:

pientä edistystä
– literally “small progress” → typically positive: you are making some progress (even if it’s modest).
vähäistä edistystä
– “little progress / only a small amount of progress” → more negative / modest, can imply not much progress, possibly disappointment.

So if you want a more neutral‑to‑positive tone (“I’m seeing some progress”), pientä edistystä is usually better. Vähäistä edistystä tends to highlight how little progress there is.