Learn Hardcore Finnish: Jotkut pelkäävät kovaa ääntä, kun raketit ammutaan taivaalle ja valot kiiltävät pimeässä. - Some people are afraid of the loud noise when the rockets are shot into the sky and the lights shine in the dark.

Jotkut pelkäävät… ≈ “Some (people) are afraid…”
If you wanted to spell it out, you could say Jotkut ihmiset pelkäävät…, but it isn’t necessary.

Why is the verb pelkäävät in the 3rd person plural, and how is it formed from pelätä?

The subject jotkut is plural, so the verb must also be plural: pelkäävät (“they are afraid / they fear”).

From the verb pelätä (“to fear”), the present tense forms are:

minä pelkään – I am afraid
sinä pelkäät – you are afraid
hän pelkää – he/she is afraid
me pelkäämme – we are afraid
te pelkäätte – you (pl) are afraid
he pelkäävät – they are afraid

In the sentence, he (“they”) is not written, but it’s implied by jotkut, so we use the he-form pelkäävät.

Why is it kovaa ääntä and not kova ääni for “a loud sound / loud noise”?

Kovaa ääntä is in the partitive case, singular, and both the adjective and noun are in that case:

nominative: kova ääni (“a loud sound”)
partitive singular: kovaa ääntä

There are two key reasons:

The verb pelätä (“to fear”) requires the partitive.
Many Finnish verbs always take a partitive object, and pelätä is one of them.
So you normally say:
- pelkään pimeää – I’m afraid of the dark
- pelkään koiria – I’m afraid of dogs
- pelkäävät kovaa ääntä – they are afraid of loud noise
Adjectives agree with the noun in case and number.
Since ääntä is partitive singular, the adjective also becomes partitive singular: kovaa.

So kova ääni would be grammatically wrong after pelkäävät; you need kovaa ääntä.

Why is it ääntä (singular) and not ääniä (plural)? Could you say kovia ääniä?

Both are possible, but they mean slightly different things:

kovaa ääntä – “loud noise / loud sound” in a more general or mass-like sense
- Like background loudness, not focusing on separate individual sounds.
kovia ääniä – “loud sounds / loud noises” in the plural, as separate events or instances
- Suggests many distinct bangs, cracks, whistles, etc.

In your sentence, kovaa ääntä fits very well because we’re talking about loud noise in general when rockets go off.

You could also say:

Jotkut pelkäävät kovia ääniä, kun…

That would be grammatical, just with a slightly different nuance (more like “they’re afraid of all the individual loud bangs”).

Why is there a comma before kun in Finnish?

In standard written Finnish, you always put a comma between the main clause and a following subordinate clause starting with words like:

kun (when)
että (that)
koska (because)
jos (if)
vaikka (although)

So you get:

Jotkut pelkäävät kovaa ääntä, kun raketit ammutaan taivaalle…
En tule, koska olen sairas.

Even though in English you often don’t put a comma before “when” or “because” in this position, Finnish does require it here.

How is kun used in this sentence? Is it “when” or “because”? Could I use koska instead?

In this sentence kun is a time word meaning “when”:

…kun raketit ammutaan taivaalle ja valot kiiltävät pimeässä.
→ “…when the rockets are fired into the sky and the lights shine in the dark.”

So the idea is: at the time when fireworks go off, some people are afraid.

kun can mean “when” (time) or sometimes “because” (reason), depending on context.
koska is mainly “because” and does not normally mean “when”.

If you change kun to koska here:

Jotkut pelkäävät kovaa ääntä, koska raketit ammutaan taivaalle ja valot kiiltävät pimeässä.

Now it means: “Some people are afraid of the loud noise because rockets are fired into the sky and lights shine in the dark.”
That is a reason-clause, not a time-clause, so the meaning changes.

What exactly is going on in raketit ammutaan? Why this form and not raketit ampuvat or ammutaan raketteja?

Ammutaan is the passive (or impersonal) form of ampua (“to shoot”).

raketit ammutaan = “the rockets are shot / launched”
- Literally: “rockets are shot” (by people, but the doer is not mentioned).

Key points:

Passive form
- ammutaan = “(someone) shoots / rockets are shot”
- No visible subject like “they” or “people”; the doers are left generic.
Nominative plural raketit
- In Finnish passive with a complete, definite object, that object often appears in nominative:
  - Raketit ammutaan – “The rockets are (all) fired.”
- If you want a more indefinite or partial idea (“some rockets are fired”), you’d use the partitive:
  - Ammutaan raketteja – “Some rockets are (being) fired” / “Rockets are being fired.”
Why not raketit ampuvat?
- Raketit ampuvat would mean “the rockets shoot (something)” – the rockets are the shooters, which is not what you want.

So raketit ammutaan is “the rockets are shot” in the Finnish passive.

Why is it taivaalle and not taivaalla or taivaaseen?

These are different local cases with different meanings:

taivaalle (allative, “onto / to the sky”) – direction towards the sky
- Used for movement towards a surface or open area.
- Very natural with fireworks: ampua raketteja taivaalle (“shoot rockets into the sky / up to the sky”).
taivaalla (adessive, “in/on the sky”) – location, no movement
- Raketit räjähtelevät taivaalla. – “The rockets are exploding in the sky.”
taivaaseen (illative, “into the sky / into heaven”) – movement into an interior
- More “into heaven” in many contexts; can sound more poetic or religious.

In your sentence, rockets are moving towards/up into the sky, so taivaalle is the standard choice.

Why is pimeässä used, and what exactly does it mean here?

Pimeässä is the inessive case of pimeä, which can mean both “dark” (adjective) and “darkness” (noun).

pimeä – dark / darkness
pimeässä – “in the dark”

So valot kiiltävät pimeässä = “the lights shine in the dark.”

Here, pimeä functions like a noun (“the dark”), and -ssä (“in”) gives the place: in the dark surroundings.
You could also use pimeydessä (from pimeys, another noun for “darkness”), but pimeässä is shorter and very common.

Why are ammutaan and kiiltävät in the present tense, even though this might refer to future events (like New Year’s fireworks)?

Finnish does not have a separate future tense. The present tense is used for:

present time
near future / planned future
general truths and habits

The time is usually clear from context or from time expressions.

In this sentence:

kun raketit ammutaan taivaalle ja valot kiiltävät pimeässä

can be understood as:

“when the rockets are (regularly) fired into the sky and the lights shine in the dark”
or “when the rockets will be fired into the sky and the lights will shine in the dark”

English uses a future idea here (“when the rockets are fired / will be fired”), but Finnish keeps the simple present.

Can I put the kun-clause first, like: Kun raketit ammutaan taivaalle ja valot kiiltävät pimeässä, jotkut pelkäävät kovaa ääntä?

Yes. Finnish word order is quite flexible, and this version is fully correct:

Kun raketit ammutaan taivaalle ja valot kiiltävät pimeässä, jotkut pelkäävät kovaa ääntä.

Putting the kun-clause first makes the time/background more prominent:

“When the rockets are fired into the sky and the lights shine in the dark, some people are afraid of the loud noise.”

Both orders are fine; they just slightly change the emphasis, not the basic meaning.

In kun raketit ammutaan taivaalle ja valot kiiltävät pimeässä, does kun also apply to valot kiiltävät? Do I need to repeat kun?

Yes, the single kun at the beginning applies to both verbs:

kun [raketit ammutaan taivaalle] ja [valot kiiltävät pimeässä]

So the meaning is:

“when the rockets are fired into the sky and when the lights shine in the dark…”

You do not need to repeat kun before valot.

You could say, for emphasis:

kun raketit ammutaan taivaalle ja kun valot kiiltävät pimeässä…

but the original sentence is more natural and completely clear to native speakers.