Learn Hardcore Finnish: Keväällä kävelen puistossa joka päivä.

kevät (nominative) is the basic dictionary form:
- Kevät on kaunis. = Spring is beautiful.
Keväällä (adessive) is the normal way to say “in (the) spring / during spring”:
- Keväällä kävelen… = In spring I walk…
kevässä (inessive: “in the spring” literally “inside spring”) is almost never used as a time expression and would sound very odd here.

For seasons, Finnish almost always uses the adessive form (-lla / -llä) for “in [season]”.

Does Keväällä mean “in spring” or “in the spring”? How do I say “a / the” in Finnish?

Keväällä can mean both:

In spring I walk in the park every day.
In the spring I walk in the park every day.

Finnish does not have articles (no “a / an / the”). Whether you translate it with a or the into English depends on context, not on any extra word in Finnish.

So:

Keväällä kävelen puistossa joka päivä.
can be translated:
- In spring I walk in the park every day.
- In the spring I walk in the park every day.

What tense is kävelen, and can it mean “I walk”, “I am walking”, or “I will walk”?

Kävelen is present tense, 1st person singular of kävellä (to walk).

Finnish present tense covers several English meanings:

habitual / general:
- Keväällä kävelen puistossa joka päivä.
  = In spring I walk in the park every day.
right now:
- Kävelen puistossa.
  = I am walking in the park.
near future (when context makes this clear):
- Huomenna kävelen puistoon.
  = Tomorrow I’ll walk to the park.

So kävelen can correspond to I walk / I am walking / I will walk, depending on context.

Why is there no word for “I” (minä) before kävelen?

The subject is built into the verb ending in Finnish:

kävele- (verb stem) + -n (ending “I”) → kävelen = I walk

Because the person is already marked on the verb, the pronoun minä is usually left out unless you want to stress it:

Kävelen puistossa. = I walk / I am walking in the park.
Minä kävelen puistossa. = I walk in the park (as opposed to someone else).

So the sentence is complete and natural without minä.

How is kävelen formed from the verb kävellä?

Kävellä is a Type 3 verb (ends in -lla / -llä, -rra, -sta, -nta / -nnä).

Formation of the present tense stem:

Take the dictionary form: kävellä (to walk)
Remove -llä → käve-
Add the Type 3 linking vowel -le- (already present): kävele-
Add personal endings:

minä kävelen = I walk
sinä kävelet = you (sg) walk
hän kävelee = he / she walks
me kävelemme = we walk
te kävelette = you (pl) walk
he kävelevät = they walk

So specifically: kävele- + -n → kävelen.

What does the ending -ssa in puistossa mean, and how is that different from just puisto?

Puisto = park (basic form, nominative).
Puistossa = in the park (inessive case).

The ending -ssa / -ssä is the inessive case, which typically means “in, inside” a place.

For puisto you get:

puisto = (a/the) park
puistossa = in the park
puistoon = into the park
puistosta = out of / from the park
puistossa kävellä = to walk in the park

In the sentence, kävelen puistossa = I walk in the park.

Why is it puistossa (with -ssa) but Keväällä (with -llä)—both seem to mean “in / at”?

Finnish has two main sets of location cases:

“Inside” series (internal):
- -ssa / -ssä (inessive) = in, inside
- -sta / -stä (elative) = out of, from inside
- -seen / -hon / -hun etc. (illative) = into
“On / at” series (external):
- -lla / -llä (adessive) = on, at, by and also used for many time expressions
- -lta / -ltä (ablative) = from (the surface / from at)
- -lle (allative) = onto, to (a surface / to at)

In your sentence:

puistossa uses -ssa (inessive) → literally in the park.
Keväällä uses -llä (adessive) because seasons and many time expressions conventionally take the adessive:
- Keväällä (springtime)
- Kesällä (summer)
- Yöllä (at night)
- Aamulla (in the morning)

So both express a kind of “in/at”, but they belong to different case families and follow different usage patterns.

Why is joka päivä written as two words and not as one word jokapäivä?

joka päivä (two words) = “every day” (time expression)
- Keväällä kävelen puistossa joka päivä.
  = In spring I walk in the park every day.
jokapäivä (one word) is part of the adjective jokapäiväinen, meaning “everyday, ordinary, commonplace”:
- jokapäiväinen asia = an everyday / ordinary thing
- jokapäiväiset vaatteet = everyday clothes

So in the sentence, you want the time adverbial “every day”, which is joka päivä, two words.

What exactly does joka mean in joka päivä? Does päivä change its form here?

Joka in this context means “each / every”.

In the fixed expression joka päivä:

joka = every
päivä (nominative singular) = day

Together: joka päivä = every day.

Here päivä stays in its basic form (nominative). The whole phrase acts as a time adverbial, but you don’t show that with a case ending; it’s just joka + noun (nominative singular).

Compare:

joka kevät = every spring
joka ilta = every evening

Can I change the word order? For example, is Joka päivä keväällä kävelen puistossa also correct?

Finnish word order is fairly flexible, and all of these are grammatically possible:

Keväällä kävelen puistossa joka päivä. (neutral, very natural)
Keväällä kävelen joka päivä puistossa.
Joka päivä keväällä kävelen puistossa.
Kävelen keväällä puistossa joka päivä.

Changing the order mainly changes emphasis:

Starting with Keväällä emphasises the time of year.
Starting with Joka päivä emphasises the frequency.
Putting puistossa earlier or later can emphasise the place.

For a neutral, textbook-like sentence, Keväällä kävelen puistossa joka päivä is an excellent model.

Do the other seasons work like Keväällä? How would I say “In autumn I walk in the park every day” or “In summer we walk in the park every day”?

Yes, the other seasons behave the same way: they use the adessive case for “in [season]”.

Seasons (nominative → adessive):

kevät → keväällä = in (the) spring
kesä → kesällä = in (the) summer
syksy → syksyllä = in (the) autumn / fall
talvi → talvella = in (the) winter

Examples:

Syksyllä kävelen puistossa joka päivä.
= In autumn I walk in the park every day.
Kesällä kävelemme puistossa joka päivä.
= In summer we walk in the park every day.
(note kävelemme = we walk)
Talvella en kävele puistossa joka päivä.
= In winter I don’t walk in the park every day.

How do you pronounce Keväällä kävelen puistossa joka päivä? Are there any long sounds to watch out for?

Approximate pronunciation (IPA):

Keväällä → [ˈkeʋæːlːæ]
kävelen → [ˈkæʋeˌlen]
puistossa → [ˈpuistosːɑ]
joka → [ˈjokɑ]
päivä → [ˈpæiʋæ]

Key points:

Stress is always on the first syllable of each word: KE-vää-llä, KÄ-ve-len, etc.
Double vowels are long:
- ää in Keväällä [æː]
Double consonants are long:
- ll in Keväällä
- ss in puistossa
The ä is a front vowel (like in “cat”, but a bit purer), not like English a in “father”.

Saying it slowly first and clearly lengthening the ää, ll, and ss will help you sound more natural.

Is there any consonant gradation happening in this sentence?

Consonant gradation is not very prominent here, but there is a small stem change in kevät → kevää-:

kevät (nominative)
kevään (genitive)
keväällä (adessive)

The final -t of kevät disappears in the stem forms (kevää-), which is related to Finnish historical gradation patterns.

For the other words:

kävellä → kävelen: no consonant gradation; the stem is kävele-.
puisto → puistossa: no consonant gradation; you just add -ssa.
joka, päivä: no gradation in the forms used here.

So you don’t really need to worry about consonant gradation for this particular sentence, apart from noticing that kevät becomes kevää- in inflected forms like keväällä.