Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin viime vuonna.

This year the harvest is better than last year.

Breakdown of Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin viime vuonna.

• olla: to be
• viime vuonna: last year
• parempi: better
• kuin: than
• tänä vuonna: this year
• sato: the crop

Questions & Answers about Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin viime vuonna.

What are tänä and vuonna grammatically, and how do they together mean this year?

Tänä is the essive case of the demonstrative pronoun tämä (this).

• tämä = this (basic form)
• tänä = as this / in this (essive)

Vuonna is the adessive case of vuosi (year).

• vuosi = year (basic form)
• vuonna = in (the) year

The fixed expression tänä vuonna literally combines “as this, in (the) year”, and together they are understood as this year.

You cannot say *tällä vuonna; with time expressions like this, Finnish uses tänä + [time word in a case, here adessive]:

• tänä vuonna – this year
• tänä kesänä – this summer
• tänä iltana – this evening

What is the case of vuonna, and why is it used for time?

Vuonna is adessive singular of vuosi.

• vuosi (nominative) → vuonna (adessive)

The adessive is often used in Finnish for time expressions, especially for days, dates, and years:

• maanantaina – on Monday
• joukokuussa – in May
• vuonna 2020 – in (the year) 2020
• viime vuonna – last year

So vuonna here simply means in the year. In tänä vuonna, it’s in this year → this year in natural English.

Why is it viime vuonna and not something like *viimeänä vuonna?

Viime (last) is an adjective that is mostly indeclinable in common time expressions like this. It stays in its base form, and the noun takes the case ending:

• viime vuosi – last year (basic form)
• viime vuonna – in the last year → last year
• viime viikko – last week
• viime viikolla – last week (in / during last week)

So we decline vuosi → vuonna, but viime itself does not get any ending here. That is why it is viime vuonna, not *viimeänä vuonna or similar.

What exactly does sato mean here?

Sato means harvest or crop yield, i.e. the amount produced by fields, plants, etc., in a season.

In this sentence, sato is a mass / collective noun: it refers to the entire harvest in a general way, not to individual plants.

So the idea is roughly:
“This year, the harvest is better than last year.”

Why is there no word for the in sato? How do I know it is the harvest and not a harvest?

Finnish has no articles at all – no a/an and no the. The bare noun sato can correspond to:

• a harvest
• the harvest
• just harvest (in general)

Context decides how you translate it. Here, because we are comparing harvest this year vs. harvest last year, English naturally uses the harvest. Finnish does not mark this difference in the noun; sato by itself is enough.

Why is sato in the basic form (nominative) and not satoa?

Here sato is the subject of the sentence:

• sato on parempi – the harvest is better

The normal subject form is nominative (basic form), so sato is correct.

If you said satoa, that would be partitive, and it would change the meaning. For example:

• Satoa on enemmän. – There is more harvest / The amount of harvest is greater.
  (Focus on quantity, not on quality.)

In the original sentence, the focus is on quality / overall goodness, so we use nominative:

• sato on parempi – the harvest is better (as a whole)

What form is parempi, and how is it related to hyvä?

Parempi is the comparative form of the adjective hyvä (good).

• hyvä – good
• parempi – better (comparative)
• paras – best (superlative)

So in this sentence:

• sato on parempi – the harvest is better

Note that parempi is an irregular comparative; it’s not formed by just adding -mpi to hyvä.

Why is it parempi kuin and not *parempi kun?

In comparisons, Finnish uses kuin (than), not kun.

• parempi kuin – better than
• suurempi kuin – bigger than
• kauniimpi kuin – more beautiful than

Kun is a different word, usually meaning when or if:

• Kun tulin kotiin, satoi. – When I came home, it was raining.
• Jos / kun se tulee, soita. – If / when he comes, call.

So in a comparative structure, it must be:

• parempi kuin viime vuonna – better than last year

Why is there no verb in the part kuin viime vuonna? In English we would say “than it was last year”.

Finnish often leaves out repeated elements if they are clear from context. After kuin, the second clause is typically shortened:

Full, very explicit version (rare in everyday speech):

• Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin se oli viime vuonna.
  – This year the harvest is better than it was last year.

Natural version:

• Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin viime vuonna.
  (The verb oli and pronoun se are understood and omitted.)

Finnish speakers automatically understand that “than last year” means “than it was last year”, so you don’t need to repeat se oli.

Could I say *Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin viime vuosi, without -na on vuosi?

No. After kuin in this kind of comparison, the compared element normally appears in the same case as in the first part.

We have:

• tänä vuonna (essive tänä
  • adessive vuonna)
    so we must say:
• kuin viime vuonna (adessive vuonna again)

If you said *kuin viime vuosi, you would be mixing cases and it would sound ungrammatical or at least very wrong.

Other examples of this “same-case” pattern:

• Söin eilen enemmän kuin tänään.
  (eilen / tänään both adverbs of time)

• Tällä kurssilla on vähemmän opiskelijoita kuin edellisellä kurssilla.
  (both kurssilla = adessive)

Can the word order change, for example to Sato on tänä vuonna parempi kuin viime vuonna? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, you can change the word order. Common alternatives include:

1. Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin viime vuonna.
2. Sato on tänä vuonna parempi kuin viime vuonna.
3. Sato on parempi tänä vuonna kuin viime vuonna.

All are grammatically correct and basically mean the same thing.

The differences are about emphasis:

• Starting with Tänä vuonna (version 1) slightly emphasizes this year as the topic: “As for this year…”
• Starting with Sato (versions 2–3) puts more initial focus on the harvest.
• Placing tänä vuonna closer to parempi (version 3) can make the timing feel more tightly connected to the comparison itself.

In normal conversation, all three would usually be understood the same way; the nuances are subtle.

Is there a difference between sato on parempi and sato on parempaa in a sentence like this?

Yes, there is a nuance:

• sato on parempi – nominative predicative
  → tends to describe the harvest as a whole being better (overall evaluation).

• sato on parempaa – partitive predicative
  → often suggests more of a partial / quantitative / “there is more of good harvest” flavor, or a vague, not fully delimited comparison.

In your exact sentence:

• Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin viime vuonna.
  → The harvest this year is better than last year (overall).

You could hear Tänä vuonna sato on parempaa kuin viime vuonna, but it feels a bit more abstract or focuses more on the type / amount of good harvest rather than on a clear-cut, whole-thing comparison. For a learner, sticking to sato on parempi here is safest and most natural.

How would I say “This year’s harvest is better than last year’s” more literally in Finnish?

You can make the “X’s harvest” structure explicit with the genitive:

• Tämän vuoden sato on parempi kuin viime vuoden.
  – This year’s harvest is better than last year’s.

You can also repeat sato:

• Tämän vuoden sato on parempi kuin viime vuoden sato.

Your original sentence:

• Tänä vuonna sato on parempi kuin viime vuonna.

is the most typical and idiomatic way to express this idea in Finnish, but the genitive + sato versions are also correct and useful to know.