Learn Hardcore Finnish: Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa. - I try to keep everyday life in balance.

yritän is the main verb, conjugated for person, number and tense.
pitää is the 1st infinitive, uninflected, acting like “to keep” in English.

So only the first verb (yritän) carries the personal ending -n (I). The next verb stays in the infinitive.

What grammatical form is yritän, exactly?

Yritän is:

from the verb yrittää = to try
person: 1st person singular (I)
tense: present (ongoing, general habit or current action)
mood: indicative (normal statement)
ending: -n, the regular 1st person singular ending in the present tense

So: yritän = I try / I am trying. Finnish doesn’t distinguish between simple present and present continuous; yritän can cover both.

What form is arjen, and why not just arki?

Arjen is the genitive singular of arki (everyday life, the everyday routine).

Very simplified forms of arki:

nominative (dictionary form): arki – “(the) everyday life” (as the subject)
genitive: arjen – “of the everyday life”; also used as a total object
partitive: arkea – “(some) everyday life” in partitive role

In Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa, arjen is the object of pitää (to keep).
With this verb pattern (pitää X tasapainossa / keep X in balance), the object is typically in the genitive when we are talking about the whole thing, not just a part of it.

So:

pitää arjen tasapainossa ≈ “keep (one’s whole) everyday life in balance”

Could you also say arkea instead of arjen here? What would change?

Grammatically, arkea (partitive) is not what native speakers would normally use in this pattern. The natural choice is:

pitää arjen tasapainossa

Using arkea here would sound odd or unidiomatic in standard Finnish.

Why? Because with pitää + object + state, when we mean maintaining the whole thing in a given state, the genitive (arjen) is the normal “total object”:

Pidän kodin siistinä. – I keep the home clean.
Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa. – I try to keep everyday life in balance.

So in practice, arjen is the correct and expected form.

What does arki / arjen actually mean in everyday usage?

Arki refers to:

everyday life
the daily routine
ordinary, non-special days (as opposed to holidays, festivities, or vacations)

So arjen here means one’s ordinary daily life with work, chores, family, etc.

Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa is about trying to keep that normal, everyday rhythm balanced (enough rest, work, hobbies, social life, etc.).

What case is tasapainossa, and why is it used here?

Tasapainossa is the inessive singular of tasapaino (balance).

tasapaino = balance
tasapainossa = in balance

The inessive ending -ssa/-ssä most often means “in” a place, but it is also used for states and conditions, much like English “in”:

rakastuneena = in love (essive, different pattern)
tasapainossa = in balance
kunnossa (from kunto) = in (good) shape / in order

In pitää X tasapainossa, the structure is:

pitää = keep
arjen = the object (everyday life)
tasapainossa = the state it is kept in

So tasapainossa literally means “in a state of balance.”

Could you also say tasapainoon or tasapainoisena? How would that differ from tasapainossa?

Yes, you can use related forms, but the nuance changes.

tasapainoon (illative: “into balance”)
- Emphasis on reaching balance, a change of state:
- Yritän saada arjen tasapainoon.
  = I’m trying to get everyday life into balance (from an unbalanced state).
tasapainoisena (essive of adjective tasapainoinen: “as balanced”)
- Describes a quality or characteristic:
- Yritän pitää arjen tasapainoisena.
  ≈ I try to keep everyday life balanced / as a balanced one.
tasapainossa (inessive: “in balance”)
- Focus on being in the state of balance:
- Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa.
  = I try to keep everyday life in balance.

All are grammatically possible, but tasapainossa is the most neutral, common way to express “in balance” as an ongoing condition.

Pitää can mean “to like” and “to keep”. Which meaning is it here, and how do you know?

In this sentence pitää clearly means “to keep”, not “to like”.

You can tell from the structure:

pitää + jostakin → “to like something”
- Pidän kahvista. – I like coffee.
pitää + object + (in) some state → “to keep something in a certain state”
- Pidän oven auki. – I keep the door open.
- Pidän kodin siistinä. – I keep the home clean.
- Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa. – I try to keep everyday life in balance.

Because we have pitää + arjen + tasapainossa, this matches pattern 2, so the meaning is “to keep”. There is no -sta / -stä (elative) case that would signal the “like” meaning.

Could you add a possessive, like Yritän pitää arkeni tasapainossa? Is that correct, and what changes?

Yes, you can say:

Yritän pitää arkeni tasapainossa.

Here:

arkeni = my everyday life (arki
- possessive suffix -ni)

This is grammatically correct and sounds natural. The nuance:

Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa.
= more general; often implicitly “my everyday life”, but not marked
Yritän pitää arkeni tasapainossa.
= explicitly my everyday life; a bit more personal or emphatic

In many contexts, Finnish doesn’t need the possessive suffix because possession is obvious from context. Both versions work; arkeni just makes the “my” part explicit.

Can the word order change, like Yritän pitää tasapainossa arjen?

You could say Yritän pitää tasapainossa arjen, and it’s still understandable and grammatically possible, but:

The neutral and most natural order is:
Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa.

Moving tasapainossa earlier (Yritän pitää tasapainossa arjen) can sound a bit marked or poetic, or as if you are emphasizing tasapainossa (the state) over arjen. In everyday, neutral speech and writing, keep the original order.

Is this sentence formal, informal, or neutral? In what situations could I use Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa?

The sentence is neutral in style:

Not slangy
Not particularly formal either

You can use Yritän pitää arjen tasapainossa in almost any context:

Chatting with friends or family
In an email or message
In a blog post, interview, or article about lifestyle / wellbeing

It sounds natural for both spoken and written Finnish.