Learn Hardcore Finnish: Jos ruoka on liian makea tai liian mausteinen, vatsani tulee kipeäksi. - If the food is too sweet or too spicy, my stomach starts to hurt.

This is a general rule-type sentence: “If food is too sweet or too spicy, my stomach gets sore (as a general fact).” For this “whenever/if this happens, then that happens” meaning, Finnish uses the present indicative.

If you wanted a more hypothetical, one-off situation, you’d see the conditional mood, for example:

Jos ruoka olisi liian makeaa, vatsani tulisi kipeäksi.
= If the food were too sweet, my stomach would get sore.

Why is ruoka singular without any article, even though in English we might say “food” in general?

Finnish doesn’t have articles (a, an, the), and the bare singular can refer to:

one specific thing, or
the thing in general / as a category.

So ruoka here simply means food (in general). Context tells you it’s generic, not just “this particular dish”.

Some rough parallels:

Ruoka on kallista. = Food is expensive.
Liha on punaista. = Meat is red.

You don’t need anything like “the” or “some” in Finnish for these generic uses.

What exactly does liian mean, and how is it used?

Liian means too / too much / excessively, in the sense of being more than is good or acceptable.

In this sentence:

liian makea = too sweet
liian mausteinen = too spicy

A couple of points:

liian comes before the adjective or adverb it modifies.
It has the idea of “excess”, unlike tosi / hyvin / erittäin, which mean very / really / extremely but not necessarily too.

Compare:

makea = sweet
hyvin makea or tosi makea = very/really sweet
liian makea = too sweet (excessively sweet)

Why is liian repeated before both makea and mausteinen? Could it be said only once?

The sentence has:

liian makea tai liian mausteinen

You can grammatically say:

liian makea tai mausteinen

In that case, liian logically applies to both adjectives, and people will understand it as “too sweet or (too) spicy”.

However:

Repeating liian sounds clearer and slightly more emphatic: it underlines that either being too sweet or being too spicy is enough to cause the problem.
In spoken and written Finnish, it’s quite common and natural to repeat a word like liian in this kind of structure.

Why are makea and mausteinen in that form, and could they be makeaa / mausteista instead?

In the example:

ruoka on liian makea / liian mausteinen

Here makea and mausteinen are in the nominative form, acting as predicative adjectives (describing the subject ruoka).

With adjectives like this, you will also very often hear the partitive forms:

ruoka on liian makeaa / liian mausteista

Both patterns occur in real Finnish. Roughly:

Nominative predicative (makea, mausteinen) can sound a bit more like classifying or slightly more formal in some contexts.
Partitive predicative (makeaa, mausteista) is extremely common for describing qualities, especially with adverbs like liian.

So:

Your sentence is correct as written.
You’ll also often hear the partitive versions in everyday speech.

Why is tai used instead of vai?

Both tai and vai mean or, but they’re used in different contexts.

tai = or in normal statements and in open-ended questions; it is usually inclusive (A or B or both).
- Jos ruoka on liian makea tai liian mausteinen…
  = If the food is too sweet or too spicy… (either is a problem)
vai = or in questions that present a clear either–or choice.
- Onko ruoka makeaa vai mausteista?
  = Is the food sweet or spicy?

Because the sentence is a statement, not a question, tai is the correct conjunction.

What does vatsani tulee kipeäksi literally mean?

Literally, it breaks down as:

vatsani
- vatsa = stomach
- -ni = my
  → vatsani = my stomach
tulee
- from tulla = to come, to become
  → here: becomes / gets
kipeäksi
- from kipeä = sore, painful, aching
- -ksi = translative case, often “into / to (a state)”
  → kipeäksi = into a sore/painful state

So vatsani tulee kipeäksi is literally:

“my stomach becomes sore”
or more natural English:
“my stomach gets sore / my stomach starts to hurt.”

What is that -ksi ending in kipeäksi, and why is it used?

The -ksi ending is the translative case.

It is often used:

to show a change of state or end result, especially after verbs like tulla (to become), tehdä (to make into), muuttua (to change into), etc.

Examples:

tulla lääkäriksi = to become a doctor
maalata seinä valkoiseksi = to paint the wall (so that it becomes) white
vatsani tulee kipeäksi = my stomach becomes sore

So kipeäksi tells you the resulting state: the stomach changes into a sore/painful state.

Could we say vatsani on kipeä instead of vatsani tulee kipeäksi? What’s the difference?

Yes, but the meaning changes slightly.

vatsani on kipeä
= my stomach is sore / my stomach hurts (describes a state)
vatsani tulee kipeäksi
= my stomach gets / becomes sore (describes a change into that state)

In the original sentence, we’re talking about what happens when the food is too sweet or too spicy. So tulee kipeäksi nicely expresses that the condition causes the stomach to become sore.

What does the -ni in vatsani mean, and do I also need minun?

The suffix -ni is a possessive suffix meaning my.

vatsa = stomach
vatsani = my stomach

You can add the pronoun minun too:

minun vatsani = my stomach
minun vatsani tulee kipeäksi = my stomach gets sore

Both:

vatsani tulee kipeäksi
minun vatsani tulee kipeäksi

are grammatically correct. In everyday language:

Often only the suffix (vatsani) is used.
Using minun vatsani can sound more emphatic or conversational, depending on context.

Why is there a comma between the two parts of the sentence?

The sentence has two clauses:

Jos ruoka on liian makea tai liian mausteinen,
→ the if-clause (subordinate clause)
vatsani tulee kipeäksi.
→ the main clause

In Finnish, when a subordinate clause (like one starting with jos) comes before the main clause, a comma is normally placed between them.

So:

Jos ruoka on liian makea tai liian mausteinen, vatsani tulee kipeäksi.

If you reverse the order, you still keep the comma:

Vatsani tulee kipeäksi, jos ruoka on liian makea tai liian mausteinen.

Is the word order fixed, or can I put vatsani tulee kipeäksi first?

The word order is flexible here. Both are correct:

Jos ruoka on liian makea tai liian mausteinen, vatsani tulee kipeäksi.
→ Emphasis a bit more on the condition (“If the food is too X…”)
Vatsani tulee kipeäksi, jos ruoka on liian makea tai liian mausteinen.
→ Emphasis a bit more on the result (“My stomach gets sore if the food is too X…”)

The meaning is essentially the same; Finnish allows both orders as long as you keep the comma between the clauses.

What cases are the main words in: ruoka, makea, mausteinen, vatsani, kipeäksi?

Here’s a breakdown:

ruoka
- Case: nominative
- Role: subject of the first clause
- ruoka on… = the food is…
makea, mausteinen
- Case: nominative (base form)
- Role: predicative adjectives describing ruoka
- ruoka on liian makea / liian mausteinen
vatsani
- Case: nominative
- Role: subject of the second clause
- Contains possessive suffix -ni = my
kipeäksi
- Case: translative (-ksi)
- Role: complement of tulee, indicating the resulting state
- tulee kipeäksi = becomes sore