Breakdown of Jos ruutuaikaa vähennettäisiin, vireystila voisi parantua jo viikon kuluessa.
Questions & Answers about Jos ruutuaikaa vähennettäisiin, vireystila voisi parantua jo viikon kuluessa.
Vähennettäisiin is the passive conditional of vähentää (“to reduce”).
- vähennetään = is reduced / people reduce (present passive)
- vähennettäisiin = would be reduced / if people reduced (conditional passive)
Here it’s used because:
- The sentence doesn’t specify who is reducing screen time – it’s a general “if (one/people/you) reduced screen time”.
- Finnish often uses the passive for general or impersonal statements instead of an explicit subject.
You could say:
- Jos vähentäisimme ruutuaikaa, vireystila voisi parantua...
= “If we reduced screen time, alertness could improve…”
That version emphasizes “we”. The original with vähennettäisiin is more general and impersonal.
Ruutuaikaa is the partitive singular of ruutuaika (“screen time”).
It’s in the partitive because it is an object whose amount is being partially reduced, not fully removed. In Finnish, with verbs like vähentää (“to reduce”), when you talk about reducing an unspecified amount of something, you use the partitive:
- vähentää sokeria = to cut down on sugar
- vähentää kahvin juontia = to reduce coffee drinking
- vähentää ruutuaikaa = to reduce (some) screen time
If the situation were about completely getting rid of something, you’d more likely use the total object (nominative or genitive), but with “reduce”, the idea is naturally partial, so the partitive fits.
Ruutuaika literally means “screen time”:
- ruutu = screen (e.g. TV, phone, computer screen)
- aika = time
Together they form a compound noun: ruutu + a + aika → ruutuaika.
The -a- in the middle is a common linking vowel used when forming compounds in Finnish.
So ruutuaikaa in the sentence is the partitive form of this compound noun.
Vireystila means “state of alertness”, “alertness level”, or “level of wakefulness”.
- vireys = alertness
- tila = state, condition
It’s in the nominative singular (vireystila) because it is the subject of the clause:
- vireystila voisi parantua
= “the state of alertness could improve”
In Finnish, the subject is typically in the nominative case (unless other structures like partitive subjects are involved, which is not the case here).
Parantua and parantaa form an intransitive–transitive pair:
- parantua = to get better, to improve (intransitive: something improves by itself)
- parantaa = to improve something, to make better (transitive: someone improves something)
In vireystila voisi parantua, the vireystila is improving by itself as a result of reduced screen time. No explicit agent is “improving” it directly.
Compare:
- vireystila voisi parantua
= the level of alertness could improve - vähentynyt ruutuaika voisi parantaa vireystilaa
= the reduced screen time could improve (i.e. make better) the level of alertness
Both are grammatically possible, but the original emphasizes the state (vireystila) changing on its own.
Voisi is the conditional form of voida (“can, to be able to”), so literally:
- voisi parantua = “could improve / might improve”
It adds uncertainty or possibility, not a guaranteed result:
- vireystila parantuisi = the alertness would improve (more direct, more certain)
- vireystila voisi parantua = the alertness could / might improve (more tentative, less absolute)
This is similar to English “could” vs. “would”.
In Finnish, conditional sentences often use the conditional in:
- the if-clause (jos-clause), and
- the main clause.
So:
- Jos ruutuaikaa vähennettäisiin, vireystila voisi parantua...
= “If screen time were reduced, the level of alertness could improve…”
Pattern:
- Jos
- conditional (vähennettäisiin)
- main clause with conditional (voisi)
You can also see variants:
- Jos ruutuaikaa vähennettäisiin, vireystila parantuisi.
(both verbs conditional, but no voisi) - Jos ruutuaikaa vähennetään, vireystila paranee.
(both clauses in the indicative: “If screen time is reduced, alertness improves.” More neutral, general fact-like.)
Jo here means “already” / “as early as”, and it adds the nuance of sooner than you might expect.
- viikon kuluessa = within a week / in the course of a week
- jo viikon kuluessa = already within a week / as early as within a week
So the sentence is suggesting that the positive change in alertness might be noticeable fairly quickly.
Viikon kuluessa literally means “in the course of a week” or “during the week”, and by extension “within a week”.
Grammatically:
- viikon = genitive singular of viikko (“week”)
- kuluessa = inessive form of the 3rd infinitive of kulua (“to pass, to elapse”)
The construction X:n kuluessa is a common way to say “during X / in the course of X”:
- vuoden kuluessa = during the year / over the course of the year
- päivän kuluessa = during the day
So jo viikon kuluessa = “already in the course of a week” → “already within a week”.
All can refer to roughly the same time span, but with slightly different nuances:
viikon kuluessa
Literally “in the course of a week”. Often used for something that develops or changes gradually over that time. Slightly formal.viikon aikana
“During the week / over the week”. Very common and neutral. Focus on the time period in which something happens.viikossa
Literally “in a week”. Often implies completion by the end of that period:- Se paranee viikossa. = “It gets better in a week.”
In this sentence, viikon kuluessa nicely fits the idea of a gradual improvement happening during that week.
Yes. Finnish word order is quite flexible, especially with jos-clauses.
Both are correct:
- Jos ruutuaikaa vähennettäisiin, vireystila voisi parantua jo viikon kuluessa.
- Vireystila voisi parantua jo viikon kuluessa, jos ruutuaikaa vähennettäisiin.
The difference is mostly emphasis:
- Starting with Jos ruutuaikaa vähennettäisiin emphasizes the condition.
- Starting with Vireystila voisi parantua... emphasizes the result first.
The comma is still required between the clauses.
Finnish passive (often called “impersonal”) is not exactly the same as the English passive.
- English passive: focuses on the object and often omits the agent (“is reduced”, “was built”).
- Finnish passive: typically means “people do X / one does X / X is done”, without any subject at all.
Vähennettäisiin can be understood as:
- “if screen time were reduced”
and also more literally as: - “if people reduced screen time” / “if you reduced screen time”
So it’s impersonal, covering general “people/one/you/we” rather than a clear agent.
Yes, that is grammatically correct:
- vireystila parantuisi = “the alertness level would improve”
Compared to voisi parantua (“could improve”):
- voisi parantua → more tentative: it could / might improve.
- parantuisi → more definite: it would improve (according to the speaker).
So:
- Original: suggests a possibility.
- With parantuisi: suggests a more confident expectation of improvement.