Learn Hardcore Finnish: Minä tykkään kahvilasta, koska se on rauhallinen.

So the -n ending shows that the subject is I.
If you said only tykkää, it would normally be understood as he/she likes (3rd person singular), not I like.

Do I need to say Minä, or can I just say Tykkään kahvilasta?

You can absolutely drop Minä.

Finnish usually omits subject pronouns, because the verb ending already shows who the subject is. So all of these are correct and natural:

Tykkään kahvilasta, koska se on rauhallinen.
Minä tykkään kahvilasta, koska se on rauhallinen.

Using Minä adds a little emphasis on I (as opposed to someone else), or it can sound slightly more formal or careful, but grammatically it is not required.

Why is it kahvilasta and not just kahvila after tykkään?

The verb tykätä always takes its object in the elative case (-sta / -stä), not in the basic form.

So you must say:

tykkään kahvilasta = I like the café
tykkään musiikista = I like music
tykkään sinusta = I like you

You cannot say *tykkään kahvila or *tykkään kahvilan. With tykätä, the -sta / -stä ending is required. It’s just part of how this verb works.

What does the ending -sta / -stä on kahvilasta literally mean?

-sta / -stä is the elative case, whose basic meaning is “out of / from inside”:

talosta = from the house, out of the house
Suomesta = from Finland

With tykätä, this literal meaning is mostly grammaticalized: we don’t really think “I like from the café”. Instead, tykätä + elative is just the fixed pattern meaning “to like something”.

So in tykkään kahvilasta, you can think:
tykkään + [thing in elative] → I like [that thing].

What’s the difference between tykätä and pitää for “to like”?

Both verbs can mean to like, but there are some tendencies:

tykätä + elative (-sta/-stä)
- Tykkään kahvilasta. = I like the café.
- Sounds neutral / informal / everyday. Very common in spoken Finnish.
pitää + elative (-sta/-stä)
- Pidän kahvilasta. = I like the café.
- Slightly more formal or neutral-written; still used in speech too.

In most everyday situations, tykätä and pitää are interchangeable when used this way.

One note: pitää has other meanings too (e.g. pitää kiinni = to hold on, pitää puhe = to give a speech). Tykätä is more specific to “like”.

Why is it se on rauhallinen and not hän on rauhallinen for “it is peaceful”?

In Finnish, hän is used only for people (and sometimes pets) and means he / she.

Non-human things (like a café, a book, a city, a situation) are referred to with se (“it/that”) in standard language:

Kahvila on rauhallinen. Se on rauhallinen.
The café is peaceful. It is peaceful.
Kirja on mielenkiintoinen. Se on mielenkiintoinen.
The book is interesting. It is interesting.

Using hän about a café (*Hän on rauhallinen) would sound wrong or at least very strange.

Why is it se on rauhallinen, not se on rauhallista?

Both adjectives and nouns after olla (to be) can appear in nominative or partitive, and the choice depends on meaning and context.

In this sentence:

se on rauhallinen

Rauhallinen is in the nominative, matching se. You’re stating a stable, complete quality of the café: “It is (a) peaceful (place).”

You often see partitive in sentences like:

Se on kivaa. = It’s nice (in general / as an activity / non-countable).
Se on vaikeaa. = It’s difficult.

Here the quality is more like a mass / abstract thing, not tied to a concrete countable object.

With a specific, countable thing like kahvila (a café), describing it as having a quality, the normal pattern is:

Kahvila on rauhallinen. Se on rauhallinen.

So nominative (rauhallinen) is correct and natural here.

What’s the difference between rauhallinen and hiljainen? Both look like “quiet/peaceful”.

They’re related but not identical:

rauhallinen
- peaceful, calm, tranquil
- Focuses on the feeling / atmosphere: not stressful, not hectic.
- Minä tykkään kahvilasta, koska se on rauhallinen.
  → I like the café because it feels calm and relaxing.
hiljainen
- quiet, not noisy
- Focuses on low volume / little sound.
- Minä tykkään kahvilasta, koska se on hiljainen.
  → I like the café because it’s quiet (not loud).

You can use either depending on what you want to emphasize:

Lack of noise → hiljainen
A calm, peaceful atmosphere → rauhallinen

How is koska used here? Is it the same as English “because”?

Yes. In this sentence, koska means because and introduces the reason:

Minä tykkään kahvilasta, koska se on rauhallinen.
= I like the café because it is peaceful.

You can also place the reason clause first:

Koska se on rauhallinen, (minä) tykkään kahvilasta.

The meaning is the same; the difference is just word order and emphasis.

Note: koska can sometimes mean when in time expressions, but then the context is clearly about time, not reason. Here it’s clearly causal: “because”.

Why is there a comma before koska? Are commas used like in English?

Yes, in this case the comma works very much like in English:

Main clause: Minä tykkään kahvilasta
Subordinate clause (reason): koska se on rauhallinen

Finnish generally uses a comma before most subordinate conjunctions, including koska (because, when-because), että (that), jos (if), etc.:

Lähden kotiin, koska olen väsynyt.
Tiedän, että hän tulee.

So the comma in …, koska se on rauhallinen is expected and correct.

Can I change the word order, for example Koska se on rauhallinen, minä tykkään kahvilasta?

Yes, that’s correct Finnish. Both are natural:

Minä tykkään kahvilasta, koska se on rauhallinen.
Koska se on rauhallinen, (minä) tykkään kahvilasta.

The first version is more neutral: statement → reason.
The second version emphasizes the reason first: “Because it is peaceful, I like the café.”

You can also drop minä in the second sentence as well, because tykkään already shows the subject:

Koska se on rauhallinen, tykkään kahvilasta.

How do I pronounce tykkään and kahvilasta? What’s important in their pronunciation?

A few key points:

Double consonants are held longer than single ones.
- tykkään: the kk is long → tyk-kään, not ty-kään.
Long vowels are also held longer.
- tykkään: ää is a long ä.
ä is like the a in “cat”, but more front and clear.
- tykkään ≈ tükk-ään (with a front vowel, not like English “take”).

For kahvilasta:

kah-vi-las-ta (4 syllables)
Each syllable is clearly pronounced, and stress is always on the first syllable in Finnish: KAH-vi-las-ta.