Breakdown of Kun katson yötaivasta, tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin.
Questions & Answers about Kun katson yötaivasta, tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin.
Here kun means when in the temporal sense:
- Kun katson yötaivasta = When I look at the night sky
It introduces a time clause: at the time that I look at the night sky, X happens.
Kun can sometimes mean because, but then the context is more causal. Here the meaning is clearly temporal, not causal.
In Finnish, the personal ending on the verb already shows the subject, so the pronoun is usually dropped unless you want to emphasize it.
- katson = I look (1st person singular, present)
- minä katson adds emphasis, like I (as opposed to someone else) look.
So both are grammatically correct:
- Kun katson yötaivasta… – neutral, normal
- Kun minä katson yötaivasta… – When I (myself) look at the night sky… (slightly more emphatic)
Two key points:
Verb + case pattern
With katsoa (to look at), the thing you look at is normally in the partitive:- katsoa elokuvaa – to watch a movie
- katsoa televisiota – to watch TV
- katsoa yötaivasta – to look at the night sky
So it’s mostly a fixed verb pattern: katsoa + partitive.
Action is not affecting or “using up” the object
You’re not doing anything to the night sky; you’re just observing it. Such “non-resultative” actions very often take the partitive.
So yötaivasta is the singular partitive form of yötaivas.
Yötaivas is a compound noun:
- yö = night
- taivas = sky, heaven
- yötaivas = night sky
Finnish typically writes such compounds as one word, not separate words. When declined:
- nominative: yötaivas
- partitive: yötaivasta
Writing it as yö taivas would look wrong to a native speaker here.
Finnish punctuation uses commas more systematically between clauses than English.
- Kun katson yötaivasta, tuntuu…
Here:
- Kun katson yötaivasta is a subordinate clause introduced by kun.
- tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin is the main clause.
Finnish normally puts a comma between a subordinate clause and the main clause, even when English might omit it.
Finnish doesn’t need a dummy subject like English it.
- English: It feels as if space goes on forever.
- Finnish: Tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin.
tuntuu is 3rd person singular, impersonal here. You could add an experiencer:
- Minusta tuntuu, kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin.
= It feels to me as if space goes on forever.
But the sentence works fine without se or minusta, and remains natural and idiomatic.
tuntua literally means to feel (in the sense of to seem, to give a certain impression).
- Se tuntuu kylmältä. – It feels cold.
- Minusta tuntuu, että… – I feel (that) / It seems to me (that)…
In your sentence:
- tuntuu kuin… – it feels as if… / it seems as if…
So tuntuu = feels / seems in a rather impersonal way.
Here kuin means as if / as though.
The pattern is:
- tuntuu kuin + [clause in the conditional]
→ it feels as if…
Examples:
- Tuntuu kuin olisin unessa. – It feels as if I were in a dream.
- Tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin. – It feels as if space went on forever.
kuin can also mean than (pienempi kuin… = smaller than…) or like/as in comparisons, but here it clearly introduces an “as if” clause.
The conditional mood (-isi) is used because the situation is imagined / hypothetical, introduced by kuin (as if).
- avaruus jatkuu loputtomiin – space goes on forever (stated as a fact)
- tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin – it feels as if space went on forever (a subjective impression, not claimed as a fact)
In Finnish, after kuin / aivan kuin / ikään kuin in this kind of “as if” comparison, the verb is often in the conditional to show it’s not a direct factual statement, but an appearance or feeling.
Yes, loputtomiin functions as an adverb meaning endlessly / without end / forever.
Morphologically:
- loputon = endless (adjective)
- loputtomiin = illative plural of loputon
(literally something like “into endless (things)”)
But in practice you just learn loputtomiin as a fixed adverb meaning “to an endless extent, without end”.
Compare:
- jatkua ikuisesti – to continue eternally
- jatkua loputtomasti – to continue endlessly (another adverb)
- jatkua loputtomiin – to go on without end
All three are similar in meaning, with small stylistic differences.
Yes, grammatically you can say:
- Avaruus jatkuu loputtomiin. – Space goes on forever.
That’s a direct factual statement.
In your original sentence:
- tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin
The conditional jatkuisi keeps it in the realm of subjective feeling / appearance, not scientific fact.
If you changed it to tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuu loputtomiin, it would sound less idiomatic and slightly contradictory: “it feels as if space in fact does go on forever”. Native speakers strongly prefer the conditional here.
Yes, you can change the structure and it’s still correct Finnish, though the style and nuance shift slightly.
Kun katson yötaivasta, tuntuu kuin avaruus jatkuisi loputtomiin.
→ literally: When I look at the night sky, it feels as if space went on forever.
(impersonal tuntuu- kuin-clause)
Kun katson yötaivasta, avaruus tuntuu jatkuvan loputtomiin.
→ When I look at the night sky, space feels like it continues forever.
(here avaruus is the subject of tuntuu, and jatkuvan is a -VA participle form governed by tuntuu)
Both are natural. The original one with tuntuu kuin … jatkuisi emphasizes the overall feeling / impression. The alternative makes avaruus more clearly the grammatical subject of tuntuu.