Breakdown of Ennen tarkastusta hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat, vaikka hammaslääkäri on ystävällinen.
Questions & Answers about Ennen tarkastusta hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat, vaikka hammaslääkäri on ystävällinen.
Tarkastusta is in the partitive singular case. The basic form is tarkastus (check-up, inspection).
The reason: the preposition ennen (before) normally takes its complement in the partitive:
- ennen tarkastusta – before the check-up
- ennen joulua – before Christmas
- ennen kokousta – before the meeting
So it’s not tarkastus after ennen, but tarkastusta to show “before (the time of) the check-up.”
Yes. Both are correct, with the same meaning:
- Ennen tarkastusta hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat.
- Tarkastusta ennen hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat.
In modern Finnish, ennen + partitive is very commonly used as a preposition (ennen tarkastusta), but it can also behave like a postposition (tarkastusta ennen).
The main difference is style and emphasis, not grammar:
- Ennen tarkastusta ... – more neutral and very common.
- Tarkastusta ennen ... – a bit more formal/literary, or used if you want to emphasize the check-up as the point of reference.
Hermoni means “my nerves” in this sentence.
Breakdown:
- hermo = a nerve
- hermot = nerves (plural)
- -ni = possessive suffix for “my”
So hermoni can theoretically mean either:
- my nerve (singular)
- my nerves (plural)
The context and the verb show it’s plural here, because we have ovat (are, plural). That means the underlying idea is hermot + -ni → hermoni = my nerves.
Finnish usually doesn’t need a separate pronoun like my if there is a possessive suffix. So:
- hermoni = my nerves
- minun hermoni = my nerves (more emphatic or contrastive)
Normally you just say hermoni unless you really want to stress mine as opposed to someone else’s.
Because the grammatical subject is plural.
The subject is hermoni = “my nerves”, which is understood as hermot (plural) + -ni. With a plural subject, the verb olla takes the 3rd person plural form ovat:
- Hermoni ovat kamalat. – My nerves are terrible.
- Hermoni on kamala. – My nerve is terrible. (singular, a bit odd in meaning)
So ovat agrees with the plural idea “nerves.”
The form kamalat is the nominative plural of kamala (terrible, awful).
In this structure, the adjective is a predicative describing the subject:
- Hermoni (subject, “my nerves”)
- ovat (verb “are”)
- kamalat (predicative adjective agreeing with the subject)
In Finnish, a predicative adjective agrees with the subject in number (singular/plural) and case. Here the subject is plural nominative, so the predicative is also plural nominative:
- Hermoni ovat kamalat. – My nerves are terrible.
- Hermoni on kamala. – My nerve is terrible.
Kamalia would be the partitive plural and is not used here, because there is no partitive environment (no need to express partialness, quantity, etc.). We just state a quality about the whole subject, so nominative is used.
Aivan is an adverb that here works as an intensifier. It makes kamalat stronger:
- kamalat – terrible
- aivan kamalat – absolutely / really terrible
Similarly strong (though with slightly different nuances) are:
- tosi kamalat – really terrible (spoken, fairly informal)
- todella kamalat – really/very terrible (a bit more neutral/formal)
- ihan kamalat – quite/pretty terrible (can be strong or slightly softer, depending on tone)
In this sentence aivan suggests something like “absolutely dreadful” or “really terrible” in a fairly neutral style.
Joskus means “sometimes”, and adverbs like this are quite flexible in Finnish word order.
Here are all natural options:
- Hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat.
- Hermoni ovat aivan kamalat joskus.
- Joskus hermoni ovat aivan kamalat.
All mean essentially the same thing. Subtle differences:
- Hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat. – Neutral; “sometimes” is closely tied to the state of being terrible.
- Joskus hermoni ovat aivan kamalat. – Slightly more emphasis on sometimes (as opposed to always).
- Hermoni ovat aivan kamalat joskus. – Also possible but the adverb sounds a bit more detached, often used in speech.
The original choice is very natural: ovat joskus aivan kamalat flows smoothly and sounds idiomatic.
In this sentence, vaikka means “although / even though”, not “even if”.
- ..., vaikka hammaslääkäri on ystävällinen.
→ ..., although the dentist is friendly.
Vaikka is used when you state a fact that contrasts with the main clause. It introduces a concessive clause: “even though X, still Y.”
Compare:
- Vaikka hammaslääkäri on ystävällinen, hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat.
Although the dentist is friendly, my nerves are sometimes absolutely terrible.
For the “even if / in case” meaning, you would usually have a conditional verb in the subordinate clause:
- Vaikka hammaslääkäri olisi ystävällinen, hermoni olisivat silti kamalat.
Even if the dentist were friendly, my nerves would still be terrible.
Yes, you can switch the order of the clauses:
- Ennen tarkastusta hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat, vaikka hammaslääkäri on ystävällinen.
- Vaikka hammaslääkäri on ystävällinen, ennen tarkastusta hermoni ovat joskus aivan kamalat.
Both are grammatically correct and mean the same thing.
The difference is emphasis and flow:
- Starting with Ennen tarkastusta highlights the time frame first.
- Starting with Vaikka hammaslääkäri on ystävällinen highlights the contrast (“even though the dentist is friendly...”) first.
Finnish allows quite free word order, especially with whole clauses, as long as the relationships between parts are clear from the conjunctions and endings.
Hammaslääkäri is a compound noun:
- hammas – tooth
- lääkäri – doctor
Together they form one concept: hammaslääkäri = dentist.
In Finnish, compound nouns are almost always written as one word:
- hammaslääkäri – dentist
- käsilaukku (käsi hand + laukku bag) – handbag
- mobiilipuhelin – mobile phone
Writing it as two words (hammas lääkäri) would be wrong; it would look like you are just saying “tooth doctor” as two separate nouns rather than the established compound dentist.