Breakdown of Illalla kerään lelut lattialta.
Questions & Answers about Illalla kerään lelut lattialta.
Illalla is ilta (evening) + the case ending -lla (adessive singular).
The adessive case -lla / -llä usually means on / at, and with times it is used to mean at / in (a part of the day):
- illalla = in the evening / at night
- aamulla = in the morning
- yöllä = at night
- päivällä = in the daytime
So literally illalla is “at evening”, which we translate naturally as in the evening.
In Finnish, the personal ending is attached to the verb, so a separate subject pronoun is usually not needed.
- Dictionary form: kerätä = to pick up, to collect
- Stem in the present: kerää-
- 1st person singular ending: -n
So:
- kerää + n → kerään = I pick up / I collect
The subject pronoun minä (I) is optional and normally left out unless you want to emphasize it:
- Kerään lelut lattialta. = I pick up the toys from the floor.
- Minä kerään lelut lattialta. = I (as opposed to someone else) pick up the toys from the floor.
All three come from ilta (evening), but different cases give different meanings:
illalla (adessive) – in the evening, as a time when something happens
- Illalla kerään lelut lattialta. = In the evening I pick up the toys from the floor.
iltaan (illative) – into / to the evening, often used with verbs of movement or change, or in idioms
- Siirrän tapaamisen iltaan. = I move the meeting to the evening.
iltana (essive) – as an evening / on (a particular) evening, often when specifying which evening
- Sinä iltana satoi lunta. = On that evening it snowed.
In your sentence, we are just saying when the action happens, so illalla is the natural choice.
Lelut and leluja are both plural forms of lelu (toy), but they express different things:
lelut = nominative plural, used here as a total object
- Suggests that all the relevant toys are picked up, or the action is completed.
leluja = partitive plural, used for partial or unbounded objects
- Would suggest picking up some toys, not necessarily all.
In Illalla kerään lelut lattialta, lelut implies that in the evening, you pick up (all) the toys from the floor and finish the job.
If you said:
- Illalla kerään leluja lattialta.
it would sound more like “In the evening I (tend to) pick up some toys from the floor,” without the idea of a complete, finished result.
Lattialta is lattia (floor) + -lta (ablative singular).
The ablative case -lta / -ltä expresses movement from a surface or a place:
- pöydältä = from (off) the table
- parvekkeelta = from the balcony
- kadulta = from the street
- lattialta = from (off) the floor
So lelut lattialta = the toys from the floor.
Compare with the adessive:
- lattialla = on the floor
- lattialta = from the floor (off the floor)
Written, it looks irregular, but it follows a common sound-change pattern.
Base word: ilta (evening)
Ending: -lla (adessive)
If you just glued them together mechanically, you’d get iltalla, but Finnish simplifies the t + l combination here:
- ilta + lla → illalla
The t disappears and the l doubles. This is a regular assimilation pattern for many -ta words + -lla.
So the correct form is illalla, not iltalla.
They are two different cases:
lattialla = on the floor
- adessive (-lla / -llä) → location on a surface
- Lelut ovat lattialla. = The toys are on the floor.
lattialta = from the floor / off the floor
- ablative (-lta / -ltä) → movement from a surface
- Kerään lelut lattialta. = I pick up the toys from the floor.
So your sentence uses lattialta because there is movement: the toys are being taken off the floor.
Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and all of these are grammatically possible:
- Illalla kerään lelut lattialta.
- Kerään lelut lattialta illalla.
- Illalla lelut kerään lattialta. (more marked / slightly poetic or emphatic)
The most neutral, natural version is usually:
- Illalla kerään lelut lattialta.
Time (illalla) first, then verb (kerään), then object and place.
Changing the order can change what is emphasized, but the basic meaning stays the same.
Yes, you can say:
- Minä kerään lelut lattialta illalla.
Grammatically it’s fine. The main difference is emphasis:
- Kerään lelut lattialta illalla. = I pick up the toys from the floor in the evening. (neutral)
- Minä kerään lelut lattialta illalla. = I am the one who picks up the toys from the floor in the evening (not someone else).
Finnish usually omits the pronoun (minä) unless you need to stress who does the action or contrast it with someone else.
Kerätä is a general verb meaning to gather, to collect, to pick up things together.
In many contexts:
- kerätä postimerkkejä = to collect stamps
- kerätä roskat = to pick up / collect the trash
- kerätä marjoja = to pick berries
In your sentence:
- Illalla kerään lelut lattialta.
the most natural translation is “In the evening I pick up the toys from the floor”, because we are talking about cleaning up, gathering scattered toys from the floor into one place. The idea is gathering them together, not just picking up one and holding it.
You would typically make ilta plural:
- Iltaisin kerään lelut lattialta.
Iltaisin = in the evenings / on evenings (in general), showing a habitual action.
So:
- Illalla kerään lelut lattialta. = (on) this evening / in the evening (a specific time)
- Iltaisin kerään lelut lattialta. = in the evenings (as a habit, regularly)