Learn Hardcore Finnish: Tammikuun alussa monet ihmiset yrittävät toteuttaa lupauksen, että he syövät vähemmän suklaata. - At the beginning of January many people try to fulfil the promise that they will eat less chocolate.

The capital letter is simple: in Finnish, just like in English, the first word of a sentence is capitalized. Month names themselves are normally written with a lowercase letter (you’d write tammikuu in the middle of a sentence).

The ending -n on Tammikuun is the genitive case (“of January”). Literally the phrase is:

Tammikuun alussa = at the beginning of January
- tammikuu = January
- tammikuun = of January
- alku = beginning
- alussa = at/in the beginning (inessive case)

So the structure is: [January’s] [in-the-beginning] → “at the beginning of January”.

What case is alussa, and why don’t we use a preposition like in English?

Alussa is the inessive case of alku (“beginning”):

alku = beginning
alussa = in/at the beginning

Finnish usually doesn’t use prepositions for time expressions the way English does. Instead, it combines:

a noun in genitive +
another noun in a local case

So:

Tammikuun alussa = in the beginning of January / at the start of January

Other similar patterns:

Joulukuun lopussa = at the end of December
Kurssin alussa = at the beginning of the course

Why is it monet ihmiset and not monia ihmisiä?

Both monet ihmiset and monia ihmisiä are grammatically possible Finnish, but they’re used differently.

monet ihmiset = many people (as the subject in the nominative plural)
monia ihmisiä = many people in the partitive plural

In this sentence, monet ihmiset is the subject of yrittävät:

Monet ihmiset yrittävät… = Many people try…

The verb yrittävät must agree with a nominative subject, so monet ihmiset is the natural choice.

Monia ihmisiä (partitive) would be more typical:

as an object (e.g. Tapasin monia ihmisiä – I met many people), or
after certain verbs or in negative sentences.

So here, for a straightforward subject, monet ihmiset is the normal form.

Why do we have yrittävät toteuttaa and not something like yrittävät toteuttavat or yrittävät toteuttamaan?

In Finnish, verbs like yrittää (“to try”) are followed by the 1st infinitive of another verb:

yrittää tehdä = to try to do
yrittää oppia = to try to learn
yrittää toteuttaa = to try to fulfil

So:

yrittävät toteuttaa = “(they) try to fulfil”

Forms like:

yrittävät toteuttavat – would sound like “they try they fulfil”, which is wrong.
yrittävät toteuttamaan – is also incorrect with yrittää. The -maan / -mään form (3rd infinitive illative) is used with verbs like alkaa / ruveta / alkaa tekemään (“to start doing”), not with yrittää.

So just remember: yrittää + basic infinitive (tehdä, toteuttaa, oppia, jne.).

What exactly does toteuttaa mean, and how is it different from pitää with promises?

Toteuttaa means “to carry out, to realize, to fulfil (something)”. With promises:

toteuttaa lupaus = to fulfil/carry out a promise
pitää lupaus or pitää lupauksensa = to keep one’s promise
pitää kiinni lupauksesta = to stick to a promise

In practice, toteuttaa lupaus and pitää lupauksensa are close in meaning. A subtle nuance:

toteuttaa lupaus: stresses actually doing what was promised.
pitää lupaus: stresses not breaking the promise, being faithful to it.

In the sentence, yrittävät toteuttaa lupauksen = “they try to fulfil a promise” – i.e. they try to actually act according to what they promised.

Why is lupauksen in that form with -n instead of lupausta?

Lupauksen is again the genitive/accusative singular of lupaus (promise):

lupaus = promise
lupauksen = (the) promise (as a total object)

With verbs like toteuttaa, when you see the action as complete/aimed at a whole, you use a total object, which in the singular looks like the genitive:

toteuttaa lupauksen = to fulfil the (whole) promise
toteuttaa suunnitelman = to carry out the plan

You could theoretically use the partitive to suggest something more ongoing or incomplete:

yrittävät toteuttaa lupaustaan
→ they try to fulfil their promise (and are in the process, not necessarily fully succeeding)

But in normal “New Year’s resolution” style, the event is seen as a clear goal, so lupauksen as a total object is natural.

Why is there a comma before että, and what is että doing here?

Että is a subordinating conjunction, roughly “that” in English:

lupaus, että he syövät vähemmän suklaata
= the promise that they will eat less chocolate

In Finnish punctuation, subordinate clauses introduced by words like että, koska, vaikka, jos are normally separated from the main clause with a comma:

He sanoivat, että tulevat myöhemmin.
Hän jäi kotiin, koska oli sairas.

So the comma in:

…yrittävät toteuttaa lupauksen, että he syövät…

is there simply because an että-clause is starting.

Why is the pronoun he repeated in että he syövät vähemmän suklaata? Can it be left out?

Yes, it can be left out, and both versions are possible:

…lupauksen, että he syövät vähemmän suklaata.
…lupauksen, että syövät vähemmän suklaata.

Finnish often omits the subject pronoun when it’s clear from context, especially when it’s the same subject as in the main clause. Here, it is clear that the people who made the promise are the ones eating less chocolate.

Including he can:

make the sentence slightly clearer at a glance,
add a tiny bit of emphasis to they.

Stylistically, many writers keep the pronoun in this kind of sentence, but leaving it out is not wrong.

Why is syövät in the present tense if the meaning is future (“will eat less chocolate”)?

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

present time, and
future time, when the context makes it clear.

So:

Huomenna he syövät vähemmän suklaata.
= Tomorrow they will eat less chocolate.
Tammikuun alussa monet ihmiset yrittävät toteuttaa lupauksen, että he syövät vähemmän suklaata.
= “…that they will eat less chocolate.”

The time reference (New Year / in January) tells us this is about the future, even though the verb form is present.

What exactly is vähemmän, and why not something like vähempää?

Vähemmän is the comparative form of the quantifier vähän (“a little, a small amount”) used as an adverb/quantifier:

vähän = a little
vähemmän = less
vähiten = the least

In this sentence:

syövät vähemmän suklaata
= they eat less chocolate

Vähemmän directly modifies the amount of what is eaten.

Forms like vähempi / vähempää exist, but:

they are more like adjectives (a lesser X),
and are much less common in everyday speech.

For learners, the safe and natural pattern here is:

syödä vähemmän + [partitive noun]
e.g. syödä vähemmän lihaa, juoda vähemmän kahvia, ostaa vähemmän vaatteita

Why is suklaata in the partitive case instead of suklaa?

Suklaata is the partitive singular of suklaa (“chocolate”):

suklaa = chocolate (basic form)
suklaata = (some) chocolate (partitive)

Finnish uses the partitive for objects in several situations, and two of them apply here:

Unspecified / indefinite amount, especially with mass nouns:
- syödä suklaata = to eat (some) chocolate
- juoda maitoa = to drink (some) milk
After many quantity expressions:
- paljon suklaata = a lot of chocolate
- vähemmän suklaata = less chocolate

So syövät vähemmän suklaata literally means “they eat a smaller amount of chocolate”. We’re not talking about eating all the chocolate, just some unspecified, reduced amount.

Could we say syövät suklaata vähemmän instead of syövät vähemmän suklaata?

Yes, both are grammatically correct:

he syövät vähemmän suklaata
he syövät suklaata vähemmän

The difference is mostly word order emphasis:

vähemmän suklaata (quantifier before the noun) is the most natural, neutral way to say “less chocolate”.
suklaata vähemmän can sound a bit more contrastive, as if you are especially emphasizing the chocolate in contrast to something else:
- He syövät suklaata vähemmän, mutta hedelmiä enemmän.
  They eat chocolate less, but fruit more.

In an isolated sentence like yours, syövät vähemmän suklaata is the preferred, most idiomatic order.

Could we also say Tammikuun alussa monet ihmiset yrittävät toteuttaa lupauksensa syödä vähemmän suklaata.? How is that different from the että-clause?

Yes, that alternative is possible:

…yrittävät toteuttaa lupauksensa syödä vähemmän suklaata.

Here:

lupauksensa = lupaus
- -nsä (possessive suffix for “their”),
syödä vähemmän suklaata is an infinitive phrase directly describing the content of the promise.

So we have two patterns:

lupauksen, että he syövät vähemmän suklaata
= the promise that they will eat less chocolate (with an että-clause)
lupauksensa syödä vähemmän suklaata
= their promise to eat less chocolate (with an infinitive phrase)

Both are natural. The original sentence with että:

feels slightly more like you’re stating a fact they’ve promised (“that they eat less chocolate”),
whereas the syödä-version feels more like the title or label of the promise (“the promise to eat less chocolate”).

For everyday purposes, you can treat them as near-synonyms.