Learn Hardcore Finnish: Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vasta, kun puudutus toimii hyvin. - The dentist drills the tooth only after the anaesthesia is working well.

Drilling a tooth is an ongoing process, and the dentist is just working on the tooth, not “using it up” or completely changing its identity. That’s why the object is in the partitive: poraa hampaata.

You see the same pattern with body parts and medical actions:

Lääkäri tutkii potilasta. – The doctor examines the patient.
Hammaslääkäri paikkaa hammasta. – The dentist fills a tooth.
Hammasta särkee. – My tooth aches. (literally: “It aches the tooth.”)

I thought the partitive of hammas is hammasta. Is hampaata actually correct?

In standard Finnish, the normal singular partitive of hammas is hammasta.

So in neutral standard language you would most often see:

Hammaslääkäri poraa hammasta.

The form hampaata is based on the stem hampa- (compare plural hampaat, hampaita). It does occur in some dialects and in colloquial speech, but many grammars and textbooks treat hammasta as the standard form.

So:

For learning and exams, prefer hammasta.
If you see hampaata, understand it as a non‑standard / dialectal variant of the same case and meaning.

Why is poraa in the present tense when the English translation uses “will drill”? Isn’t that future?

Finnish doesn’t have a separate future tense. The present tense is used for:

present time
general truths / habits
and future actions, when the context makes it clear

So:

Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vasta, kun puudutus toimii hyvin.
literally: “The dentist drills the tooth only when the anaesthetic works well.”

In English we naturally say “will drill” here, but Finnish just keeps the present tense poraa. The time reference (future, in practice) is clear from the condition vasta, kun puudutus toimii hyvin.

What exactly does vasta mean here, and how is it different from vain?

In this context vasta means “not until / only when”.

Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vasta, kun puudutus toimii hyvin.
→ The dentist will not start drilling until the anaesthetic is working well.

Difference from vain:

vain = only (simple restriction)
- Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vain, kun puudutus toimii hyvin.
  = The dentist only drills when the anaesthetic works well. (Could be interpreted more as a rule in general.)
vasta = not before / only after some expected point is reached
- It adds a temporal nuance: there is some waiting, then after that, the action happens.

So vasta, kun… ≈ “not until …”, whereas vain, kun… ≈ “only when …” without that same sense of delay or waiting.

Why is there a comma before kun? Could you also start with Kun puudutus toimii hyvin…?

Yes, you can start with the kun‑clause:

Kun puudutus toimii hyvin, hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vasta.

About the comma:

kun introduces a subordinate clause (a “when”-clause).
In standard written Finnish, a subordinate clause is separated from the main clause with a comma, no matter which order they come in.

So both are correct and mean the same:

Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vasta, kun puudutus toimii hyvin.
Kun puudutus toimii hyvin, hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vasta.

What does kun mean here? Is it “when” or “if”? Could you use jos instead?

Here kun means “when”.

vasta, kun puudutus toimii hyvin ≈ “only when the anaesthetic is working well” / “not until the anaesthetic is working well”

Differences:

kun can mean:
- “when” (time): Kun tulen kotiin, syön. – When I come home, I eat.
- “because” in some contexts.
jos mainly means “if” (a condition that may or may not be true).

If you said:

Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vasta, jos puudutus toimii hyvin.

that would be more like “The dentist drills the tooth only if the anaesthetic works well” – grammatically OK, but it sounds more hypothetical. With kun, it’s more like a normal, expected situation: when this condition is fulfilled, then he drills.

Why is there no separate pronoun like hän or se in the second part of the sentence?

Finnish often omits personal pronouns when the subject is clear from the verb form or from context. In this sentence, though, each clause already has its own explicit subject:

Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata…
…kun puudutus toimii hyvin.

So there is no need for hän or se; the subjects are the nouns hammaslääkäri and puudutus.

If you wanted, you could say:

Kun se toimii hyvin, hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata.

Here se refers back to puudutus mentioned earlier. That’s common in longer contexts, but in this short sentence, simply kun puudutus toimii hyvin is perfectly natural.

Why is the verb toimia used with puudutus? Does puudutus toimii literally mean “the anaesthetic works”?

Yes. Toimia literally means “to function / to work (properly)”.

You can say:

Tietokone toimii. – The computer works.
Lääke toimii. – The medicine works.
Puudutus toimii. – The anaesthetic works.

So puudutus toimii hyvin = “the anaesthetic is working well / is effective”.

You could also use vaikuttaa (“to have an effect”):

Puudutus vaikuttaa hyvin. – The anaesthetic has a good effect.

But puudutus toimii is very natural, everyday phrasing for “the anaesthetic is doing its job”.

What kind of word is hammaslääkäri? Why isn’t it hampaan lääkäri?

Hammaslääkäri is a compound noun:

hammas (tooth) + lääkäri (doctor) → hammaslääkäri (dentist)

In Finnish, the first part of a compound is usually in its basic stem form, not in the genitive:

hammaslääkäri – dentist
silmälääkäri – eye doctor
lastenkirja – children’s book (here the stem is lasten, which already looks like a genitive but is treated as a fixed first part of the compound)
hammaspesu – tooth brushing

So hampaan lääkäri would sound like “the doctor belonging to one specific tooth”, not the profession. The single word hammaslääkäri is the normal way to say “dentist”.

Why doesn’t Finnish use words like “the” or “a” here (as in “the dentist” / “a dentist”, “the tooth” / “a tooth”)?

Finnish has no articles like English a/an or the. Definiteness and indefiniteness are expressed by:

context
word order
sometimes by case choices or adding other words

So:

Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata… could mean:
- “A dentist drills a tooth…” (introducing a generic dentist)
- or “The dentist drills the tooth…” (in a context where the dentist is already known)

You infer a vs the from the situation, not from a specific word in Finnish.

Can the word order with vasta be different? For example, could you say Vasta kun puudutus toimii hyvin, hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata?

Yes, that’s possible and natural:

Vasta kun puudutus toimii hyvin, hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata.

Word order in Finnish is relatively flexible and is often used for emphasis:

Hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata vasta, kun puudutus toimii hyvin.
– Neutral emphasis: statement about what the dentist does, with the condition added at the end.
Vasta kun puudutus toimii hyvin, hammaslääkäri poraa hampaata.
– Stronger emphasis on the condition: Only once the anaesthetic is working well will the dentist drill.

In both cases, vasta keeps its meaning of “not until / only when”; moving it changes what you’re highlighting, not the basic meaning.