Learn Hardcore Finnish: Lääkäri sanoi, että kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa pitämään mielentilan tasaisena. - The doctor said that moderate screen time helps keep the state of mind even.

Lääkäri sanoi, että kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa pitämään mielentilan tasaisena.

The doctor said that moderate screen time helps keep the state of mind even.

Breakdown of Lääkäri sanoi, että kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa pitämään mielentilan tasaisena.

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Questions & Answers about Lääkäri sanoi, että kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa pitämään mielentilan tasaisena.

Why is there no word like “the” before lääkäri, even though in English we say “The doctor said …”?

Finnish does not have articles like a/an or the at all. The bare noun lääkäri can mean:

a doctor
the doctor
sometimes even doctors in general, depending on context.

Context tells you whether it should be translated with a or the in English. Here, we naturally understand it as the doctor because we’re presumably talking about a specific doctor that is known to the speakers.

So:

Lääkäri sanoi … = The doctor said … (or A doctor said …, depending on context)

What exactly is sanoi? How is it formed from the verb sanoa?

Sanoi is the past tense (imperfect) of the verb sanoa (to say).

Breakdown:

sanoa = to say (basic dictionary form, 1st infinitive)
stem: sano-
past tense marker: -i-
3rd person singular ending: -∅ (no extra ending)

So:

hän sanoi = he/she said
In your sentence, the subject lääkäri matches with sanoi:
- Lääkäri sanoi … = The doctor said …

What does että do here, and why is there a comma before it?

Että is a conjunction meaning that in English, introducing a subordinate clause that functions like a reported statement.

Lääkäri sanoi, että …
= The doctor said that …

Two key points:

Comma before että
In Finnish, a comma is generally placed before että when it introduces a dependent clause.
- Lääkäri sanoi, että … (comma required in Finnish) In English, we normally don’t put a comma before “that”.
You cannot usually drop että
In English you can often omit “that”:
- The doctor said (that) moderate screen time helps …
  In Finnish, you normally must keep että:
- Lääkäri sanoi, että kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa …
  (Dropping että here would be ungrammatical.)

What does kohtuullinen mean exactly, and what is that -nen ending?

Kohtuullinen is an adjective meaning roughly:

moderate
reasonable
within a sensible limit

So kohtuullinen ruutuaika = moderate / reasonable screen time.

About the ending:

-nen is a very common adjective ending in Finnish.
Adjectives like punainen (red), sininen (blue), tyhmänen (silly — hypothetical), kohtuullinen behave similarly in their inflection.

The form kohtuullinen here is:

singular
nominative
agreeing with ruutuaika, which it modifies as an attribute:
- kohtuullinen ruutuaika = moderate screen time

What is ruutuaika, and why is it written as one word?

Ruutuaika is a compound noun:

ruutu = screen (originally: square, grid; colloquial for TV/phone/computer screen)
aika = time

Together:

ruutuaika = screen time

Why one word?

Finnish loves compound words.
When two nouns form a single, specific concept, they are typically written together:
- koulubussi (school bus)
- ruokapöytä (dining table, literally food-table)
- ruutuaika (screen time)

Case:

In the sentence it is in the nominative singular, functioning as part of the subject:
- kohtuullinen ruutuaika = subject (moderate screen time).

In kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa pitämään …, which part is the subject and which part is the verb?

The structure of the että-clause is:

kohtuullinen ruutuaika = subject (moderate screen time)
auttaa = verb (helps)

So:

kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa
= moderate screen time helps

Everything after auttaa (pitämään mielentilan tasaisena) is the verbal complement describing what it helps with.

Why is it auttaa pitämään and not auttaa pitää?

The verb auttaa (to help) is often followed by the MA-infinitive (the so‑called “third infinitive”) in the illative case (-maan/-mään) to express “help to do something”.

Dictionary form: pitää (to keep, to hold, to like)
MA-infinitive stem: pitä-
- -mA → pitämä-
Illative ending: -än → pitämään

So:

auttaa pitämään = helps (to) keep

You generally do not say auttaa pitää in this structure. The pattern is:

auttaa
- MA-infinitive (illative)
  - auttaa oppimaan = helps to learn
  - auttaa jaksamaan = helps to cope
  - auttaa pitämään = helps to keep

What form is pitämään, and what does it contribute to the meaning?

Pitämään is:

the third (MA-) infinitive,
in the illative case (ending -än).

Formally:

pitää → MA‑infinitive stem pitämä- → illative pitämään

Function:

With auttaa, this MA-infinitive in illative means “help to do X”.
Here it gives the meaning helps to keep:
- auttaa pitämään mielentilan tasaisena
  = helps to keep the mental state/mood stable.

So pitämään itself doesn’t encode tense or person; it expresses the action in a non-finite “to keep / in keeping” form that’s governed by auttaa.

Why is it mielentilan and not mielentila?

Mielentila is a compound noun:

mieli = mind
tila = state, condition

Together:

mielentila = state of mind, mental state

In the sentence, we see mielentilan, which is:

genitive singular of mielentila.

The pattern pitää + object in genitive + predicate in essive expresses “keep something in a certain state”:

pitää huoneen siistinä
= keep the room tidy
(huoneen = genitive, siistinä = essive)

Similarly:

pitää mielentilan tasaisena
= keep the mental state/mood even/stable

So:

mielentila (dictionary form)
mielentilan (genitive) because it is the object of pitämään in this specific structure.

What case is tasaisena, and what does that case mean here?

Tasaisena is in the essive case.

Base adjective: tasainen = even, level, stable
Essive singular: tasaisena

The essive often answers the question “as what / in what state?” and is used for temporary or current states or roles.

In the pattern:

pitää X Y:nä = keep X as Y / keep X in state Y

we use:

X = object in genitive
Y = predicate in essive

So:

pitää mielentilan tasaisena
literally: keep the mental state as even
→ idiomatically: keep the mood stable.

That’s why tasaisena is essive: it describes the state in which the mind is being kept.

Could we say tasaiseksi instead of tasaisena? What would be the difference?

Tasaiseksi is translative case, which typically expresses a change of state (“into what?”).

tasaiseksi ≈ into being even/stable
tasaisena ≈ as (being) even/stable / in an even state

Nuances:

pitää mielentilan tasaisena
– focuses on maintaining an already even state
– keep the mental state stable (and continue in that state)
saada mielentila tasaiseksi
– focuses on bringing about a change into an even state
– get the mental state to become stable

So in your sentence, tasaisena (essive) is correct because the idea is helping to keep / maintain stability, not causing a one-time change into stability.

Can the word order in the että-clause be changed, or must it be että kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa pitämään mielentilan tasaisena?

The default, neutral order is:

että kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa pitämään mielentilan tasaisena
(Subject – Verb – Complements)

Finnish word order is somewhat flexible for emphasis, but not anything goes. For example:

You can front something for emphasis, e.g.
- että mielentilan tasaisena auttaa pitämään juuri kohtuullinen ruutuaika
  (Very marked, rhetorical; emphasises juuri kohtuullinen ruutuaika.)

However, such rearrangements:

can sound unnatural or very emphatic in everyday speech
are harder for learners and not necessary here.

For normal usage, the given word order is the most natural and recommended:

että kohtuullinen ruutuaika auttaa pitämään mielentilan tasaisena.

Is ruutuaika singular or plural here? How would you say it in plural if needed?

In the sentence, ruutuaika is:

singular, nominative.

It refers to “screen time” as an uncountable‑type concept, much like English normally treats “screen time” as uncountable.

If you needed a plural form (for example, talking about different kinds of screen times in different contexts), you could use:

ruutuajat = screen times (plural nominative)

But in practice, people almost always talk about ruutuaika in the singular, just as English speakers nearly always say screen time (not screen times) in this kind of health or lifestyle context.