Learn Hardcore Finnish: Alussa tunnen epävarmuutta, koska olen herkkä virheille ja pelkään rikkovani kasvit. - At first I feel uncertainty, because I am sensitive to mistakes and I am afraid of breaking the plants.

alussa = “at/in the beginning” (literally “in the beginning”)
- Inessive case (-ssa): locative sense “in/at”.
- Emphasizes a period or phase at the start.
- Alussa tunnen epävarmuutta ≈ “In the beginning I feel uncertainty / At first I feel uncertain (as a phase).”
aluksi = “at first / initially” (essive -ksi)
- More like a point or starting stage, sometimes with a contrast to what happens later.
- Aluksi tunnen epävarmuutta would also be correct, with a slightly stronger feeling of “to begin with, but later this may change.”

In most everyday contexts, both would be understood similarly, but alussa highlights the initial period, while aluksi often highlights the first stage compared to later stages.

Why is it tunnen epävarmuutta and not olen epävarma?

Both are grammatically correct, but they focus on different things:

tunnen epävarmuutta
- Literally: “I feel uncertainty.”
- Focuses on the experience of a feeling.
- Uses a noun (epävarmuus, “uncertainty”) in the partitive (epävarmuutta), treated like a mass/ongoing feeling.
olen epävarma
- Literally: “I am uncertain.”
- Adjective-based description of your state or quality.

So:

Alussa tunnen epävarmuutta = “At first I (tend to) feel uncertainty.”
Alussa olen epävarma = “At first I am uncertain.”

The original version sounds a bit more like you are focusing on the emotional experience itself.

Why is epävarmuutta in the partitive case instead of nominative epävarmuus?

epävarmuutta is the partitive singular of epävarmuus (“uncertainty”). With verbs of feeling and experiencing, Finnish very often uses the partitive for the thing felt:

pelkään pimeää – I’m afraid of the dark
rakastan sinua – I love you
tunnen epävarmuutta – I feel uncertainty

Reasons:

Ongoing / incomplete / unbounded feeling
The partitive often marks something that is not seen as a single, completed “whole event,” but as a mass/ongoing quantity.
Typical pattern with feelings
Verbs like tuntea, pelätä, kaivata, rakastaa frequently take a partitive object.

Using nominative epävarmuus (tunnen epävarmuus) would be ungrammatical here; with tuntea in this sense (“to feel”), the noun needs to be in the partitive.

What exactly does olen herkkä virheille mean, and why is virheille in that form?

Olen herkkä virheille literally means “I am sensitive to mistakes.”

herkkä = “sensitive,” “easily affected by”
virhe = “mistake”
virheille = allative plural of virhe (“to/for mistakes”)

The pattern herkkä + allative expresses being sensitive/reactive to something:

herkkä melulle – sensitive to noise
herkkä kritiikille – sensitive to criticism
herkkä virheille – sensitive to mistakes

Why allative (-lle)?

The allative often expresses a direction “towards” something or something that affects you. With herkkä, Finnish uses this case to signal what you’re easily affected by.

Could you also say herkkä virheistä or herkkä virheiden suhteen? Are they wrong?

They’re not wrong, but they sound less natural in this exact collocation.

herkkä virheille
- This is the standard, idiomatic way to say “sensitive to mistakes.”
herkkä virheistä
- Uses the elative (“from mistakes”).
- Might be interpreted more like “sensitive because of mistakes / sensitive about mistakes,” and is not the normal choice.
herkkä virheiden suhteen
- Literally “sensitive in relation to mistakes.”
- Grammatically fine but wordier and more formal/technical-sounding.

For natural everyday Finnish, herkkä virheille is the best choice.

How does pelkään rikkovani kasvit work grammatically? Why not just pelkään rikkoa kasvit or pelkään, että rikon kasvit?

All three are possible, but they have slightly different structures and nuances.

pelkään rikkovani kasvit
- pelkään = I fear / I’m afraid
- rikkovani = “that I will break” (1st person singular VA-participle with possessive suffix)
- kasvit = the plants (nominative plural)
This is a compact way to say “I’m afraid (that) I’ll break the plants.”
It uses the so-called -VA participle + possessive suffix to express a subordinate clause where the subject is the same as in the main clause.
pelkään rikkoa kasvit
- rikkoa = basic (1st infinitive) form of “to break”.
- Emphasizes fearing the act of breaking.
- Can feel slightly more like “I’m afraid to break the plants” (afraid of doing it).
pelkään, että rikon kasvit
- Explicit subordinate clause with että (“that”).
- Very clear and fully standard: “I’m afraid that I will break the plants.”
- Slightly more “spoken” / everyday than the rikkovani structure for many learners.

So:

pelkään rikkovani kasvit and pelkään, että rikon kasvit are very close in meaning.
pelkään rikkoa kasvit often sounds more like fear of performing the action itself.

What is the form rikkovani, and how is it built from rikkoa?

rikkovani is:

the active VA-participle of rikkoa (“to break”)
plus the 1st person singular possessive suffix -ni

Breakdown:

Verb stem: rikko-
VA-participle: rikkova = “(one who/that) breaks / (something) that is breaking”
Add possessive suffix -ni (my / by me / that I): rikkova
- ni → rikkovani

Function here:

It creates a kind of embedded clause “that I break / that I will break”:
- pelkään rikkovani kasvit ≈ “I fear [my breaking the plants]” → “I’m afraid that I’ll break the plants.”

This structure is used when:

The subject of the main verb (pelkään) and the embedded action (rikkovani) is the same (here: “I”).
You want a compact, sentence-internal way to express “that I (will) do X.”

Why is it kasvit and not kasveja after rikkovani?

kasvit is nominative plural; kasveja would be partitive plural.

In this sentence, kasvit is the object of the action “break” inside rikkovani. The choice between nominative and partitive for objects in Finnish often signals:

Nominative object (here: kasvit)
→ total, whole, complete effect on a specific set:
- You fear breaking the plants completely (destroying them).
Partitive object (hypothetical: kasveja)
→ partial/indefinite:
- Would sound more like “some plants” (an indefinite number, not all) or the action is not seen as total/completed.

Since the idea is probably “I’m afraid I’ll (accidentally) break the plants (these particular ones),” the nominative plural kasvit is natural.

Why is the present tense pelkään used, even though the breaking would happen in the future?

Finnish often uses the present tense where English uses future forms, especially:

when expressing fears, plans, intentions, or assumptions about the future.
when the future aspect is clear from context.

So:

pelkään rikkovani kasvit
Literally: “I fear I break the plants”
Natural English: “I’m afraid I’ll break the plants.”

To talk explicitly about future time, Finnish typically relies on:

context (e.g. “When I start gardening, I’m afraid I’ll break the plants.”)
adverbs like huomenna, myöhemmin, etc., not on a special future tense.

Is the comma and koska usage here similar to English “because”? Could I use sillä instead?

Yes, koska is very close to English “because”:

Tunnen epävarmuutta, koska olen herkkä virheille…
= “I feel uncertainty, because I am sensitive to mistakes…”

You could say sillä instead of koska, but there is a nuance:

koska
- Neutral, everyday “because”.
- Used both in speech and writing.
sillä
- More formal / written, often like “for / since / because”.
- Feels slightly more like providing an explanation than a direct cause.

In normal spoken or neutral written Finnish, koska is the best and most natural choice here.

Could the word order be different, like Minä tunnen epävarmuutta alussa? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, you can change the word order, and Finnish allows quite a bit of flexibility. Some options:

Alussa tunnen epävarmuutta…
Neutral, slightly emphasizing the beginning period.
Minä tunnen epävarmuutta alussa…
Puts a bit more stress on minä (“I”), as in “I feel uncertainty at the beginning,” perhaps in contrast to others.
Tunnen epävarmuutta alussa…
Also fine; focuses more on the feeling itself, with the time phrase at the end.

The core meaning doesn’t change, but the emphasis shifts:

Early position = more emphasis (topic/focus) in Finnish.
Here, putting Alussa first naturally emphasizes “at the beginning” as the setting for what follows.