Learn Hardcore Finnish: Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen. - During the workday small interruptions easily break concentration.

Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.

During the workday small interruptions easily break concentration.

Breakdown of Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.

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Questions & Answers about Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.

What does “Työpäivän aikana” literally mean, and how is it built grammatically?

Työpäivän aikana literally means “during the workday” or “during the working day.”

It is made of:

työpäivä = workday, working day
työpäivän = genitive singular of työpäivä (“of the workday”)
aikana = “during, in the course of” (a postposition)

Structure:

[genitive noun] + aikana = “during [noun]”
- loman aikana = during the holiday
- talven aikana = during the winter

So työpäivän aikana literally is “in the time of the workday” → “during the workday.”

Why is “työpäivän” in the genitive case here instead of just “työpäivä”?

The postposition aikana requires its complement to be in the genitive case.

Pattern:

Noun (genitive) + aikana
- kokouksen aikana = during the meeting
- vuoden aikana = during the year

So you must say:

✅ työpäivän aikana
and not:
❌ työpäivä aikana

The genitive työpäivän is not about possession here; it is simply the form that goes with aikana in this fixed construction.

Could I say something like “työpäivällä” instead of “työpäivän aikana”?

You normally would not use työpäivällä in this meaning. That form would sound odd or at least non‑standard.

More natural alternatives to express time would be:

työpäivän aikana = during the workday (emphasizes the time span)
työpäivän aikana töissä = at work during the workday (if you want to add “at work”)
työpäivän aikana usein = often during the workday

The inessive/adesive forms like päivällä are common with päivä alone:

päivällä = in the daytime / during the day

But with työpäivä, the idiomatic expression for “during” is työpäivän aikana, not työpäivällä.

Why is it “pienet keskeytykset” and not “pieniä keskeytyksiä”?

Both forms are possible, but they have different nuances.

In the sentence:

pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.

pienet keskeytykset is:

nominative plural, acting as the subject
it presents small interruptions as a kind of general, countable group:
- “small interruptions (in general) easily break your concentration.”

If you said:

pieniä keskeytyksiä rikkovat helposti keskittymisen. ❌
This is ungrammatical, because the subject should not be in the partitive here.

You could use pieniä keskeytyksiä in a different structure, e.g.:

Työpäivän aikana on pieniä keskeytyksiä.
“During the workday there are small interruptions.”

So:

Subject in this sentence → nominative plural: pienet keskeytykset
Partitive plural “pieniä keskeytyksiä” is used in other constructions, not as the subject here.

What exactly is the word “keskeytykset”, and how is it formed?

keskeytykset is the nominative plural of the noun keskeytys.

keskeytys = interruption, break, disruption (a noun)
keskeytykset = interruptions (plural)

Forms:

nominative singular: keskeytys
genitive singular: keskeytyksen
partitive singular: keskeytystä
nominative plural: keskeytykset
partitive plural: keskeytyksiä

Don’t confuse it with the verb:

keskeyttää = to interrupt

So in the sentence, pienet keskeytykset = “small interruptions.”

Why is the verb “rikkovat” and not some other form of “rikkoa”?

The verb rikkoa = “to break, to break up, to disrupt.”

It is a transitive verb here, and the subject is plural:

subject: pienet keskeytykset (they)
verb: rikkovat (they break)

Present tense of rikkoa:

minä rikon
sinä rikot
hän rikkoo
me rikomme
te rikotte
he rikkovat

So:

rikkovat = 3rd person plural present (they break)

Because the subject is plural (keskeytykset), the verb must also be in 3rd person plural: rikkovat, not rikkoo (which would match a singular subject).

Why is “keskittymisen” in the genitive case and not “keskittyminen” or “keskittymistä”?

The verb rikkoa takes a total object when the breaking is seen as complete. In an active sentence with a singular total object, Finnish normally uses the genitive case for that object.

So:

rikkovat keskittymisen = “(they) break the concentration (completely / as a whole)”

Patterns for objects:

Genitive singular → total, bounded object (in an active sentence)
- Luin kirjan. = I read the book (all of it).
Partitive singular → partial, unbounded, or ongoing action
- Luin kirjaa. = I was reading (some) book / I read (part of) a book.

Here, keskittymisen (genitive of keskittyminen) is seen as a whole that gets broken.

So:

keskittyminen (nominative) would be wrong here as the object in this active sentence.
keskittymistä (partitive) would change the meaning to something like “interrupt concentration partially / to some extent” and is not the natural choice in this sentence.

What is the relationship between “keskittyminen” and the verb “keskittyä”?

keskittyä is a verb = “to concentrate, to focus.”
keskittyminen is a noun formed from that verb, meaning “concentration” (the act or state of concentrating).

The ‑minen ending is a common way to turn a verb into a noun:

opiskella → opiskelu / opiskelu can also come from opiskella, but:
harjoitella → harjoittelu
keskittyä → keskittyminen
syödä → syöminen (eating)
nukkua → nukkuminen (sleeping)

So keskittymisen is just the genitive of this noun:

nominative: keskittyminen (concentration)
genitive: keskittymisen (of concentration)

What does “helposti” mean, and where can it appear in the sentence?

helposti is an adverb meaning “easily.”

In Finnish, adverbs of manner like this often appear:

after the verb
before the object

So the given order:

rikkovat helposti keskittymisen
= “(they) easily break concentration”

Other possible (still natural) positions:

Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset helposti rikkovat keskittymisen.
(A bit more emphasis on helposti.)
Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset rikkovat keskittymisen helposti.
(Also possible, but less common and sounds slightly heavier.)

The most neutral and common order is the one in the original:
rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.

Why does the sentence start with “Työpäivän aikana”? Could I move it elsewhere?

Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and starting with a time expression is very common.

Original:

Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.

This emphasizes when this tends to happen.

You could also say:

Pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen työpäivän aikana.
Pienet keskeytykset työpäivän aikana rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.

These are grammatical, but:

Starting with Työpäivän aikana makes the time frame the topic of the sentence and sounds very natural.
Putting it at the end focuses more on “what happens,” and then adds “when” as extra information.

So yes, you can move it, but the original order is stylistically very natural.

Could the sentence use an intransitive verb like “rikkoutua” or a different verb such as “häiritä” instead of “rikkoa”?

Yes, you could change the verb, but the nuance changes.

Original:

pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.
→ “small interruptions easily break concentration.”
(Interruptions actively break it.)

Possible alternatives:

Työpäivän aikana keskittyminen rikkoutuu helposti.
→ “During the workday concentration gets broken easily.”
- rikkoutua is intransitive = “to get broken / to break (by itself).”
- Focus is more on concentration changing state than on what causes it.
Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset häiritsevät helposti keskittymistä.
→ “During the workday small interruptions easily disturb concentration.”
- häiritä = to disturb
- Object tends to be in partitive (keskittymistä) with this kind of ongoing disturbance.

So:

rikkoa
- genitive object emphasizes breaking something as a whole.
häiritä
- partitive object emphasizes disturbing/impairing it, not necessarily totally breaking it.
rikkoutua makes the event sound more happening to concentration, less about the agent.

Is there any particular nuance in calling the interruptions “pienet” here?

Yes. pienet literally means “small”, but in this context it has the sense of:

small, minor, seemingly insignificant, brief interruptions.

So the sentence implies:

Even minor interruptions (a quick question, a notification, a short remark) are enough to break concentration.

Without pienet, you’d say:

Keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.
→ “Interruptions easily break concentration.”
(No comment on their size/importance.)

With pienet, the point is stronger:
even small interruptions do this.

Can you summarize the roles of the main words in the sentence?

Roles:

Työpäivän aikana
- Time adverbial: “during the workday”
- Structure: työpäivän (genitive) + aikana (postposition)
pienet keskeytykset
- Subject, nominative plural
- “small interruptions”
rikkovat
- Main verb, 3rd person plural present of rikkoa
- “(they) break”
helposti
- Adverb of manner
- “easily”
keskittymisen
- Object, genitive singular of keskittyminen
- Total object: “(the) concentration (as a whole)”

Altogether: Työpäivän aikana pienet keskeytykset rikkovat helposti keskittymisen.
= During the workday, small interruptions easily break your concentration.