Learn Hardcore Finnish: Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä. - The maintenance man drills the wall in the kitchen.

Whether you understand huoltomies as “a maintenance man” or “the maintenance man” comes only from context. The Finnish sentence itself is neutral; it just says “maintenance man drills wall in kitchen.”

So:

Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä.
→ can mean “A maintenance man is drilling the wall in the kitchen” or
→ “The maintenance man is drilling the wall in the kitchen.”

What is the dictionary form of each word, and what do they literally mean?

huoltomies → dictionary form: huoltomies
- huolto = maintenance, service
- mies = man
  → literally “maintenance-man”
poraa → dictionary form: porata = to drill
seinää → dictionary form: seinä = wall
keittiössä → dictionary form: keittiö = kitchen
- the ending -ssä / -ssa is the inessive case, meaning “in(side)”:
  keittiössä = “in the kitchen”

Why is it “poraa” and not something like “on poraa” for “is drilling”?

Finnish does not use a separate auxiliary verb like English “is / are” to form the continuous (“is doing”) tense.

poraa is the present tense, 3rd person singular of porata:
- (minä) poraan = I drill / I am drilling
- (sinä) poraat = you drill / are drilling
- (hän) poraa = he/she drills / is drilling

The same form covers both:

“He drills the wall” and
“He is drilling the wall.”

Context usually makes it clear that in this sentence it’s an ongoing action → “is drilling.”

Why is it “seinää” and not just “seinä” for “the wall”?

Seinää is the partitive case of seinä. For objects, the partitive usually appears when:

the action is ongoing, incomplete, or unbounded, or
only part of something is affected, or
the amount is indefinite.

In “Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä”, the drilling is in progress; the wall is not yet drilled through or “finished” as an object of the action. Finnish marks that with the partitive:

seinä (nominative) → not used for a normal object here
seinää (partitive) → “(some of) the wall,” “the wall (in progress)”

So seinää tells you that the drilling is an ongoing or partial action, not a completed one.

What is the difference between “poraa seinää” and “poraa seinän”?

The difference is aspect/completeness of the action, shown via case:

poraa seinää (object in partitive, seinää)
- the action is ongoing, incomplete, or partial
- roughly: “is drilling (on) the wall,” you’re focusing on the process
poraa seinän (object in genitive, seinän)
- the action is viewed as complete/total
- can imply “drills the wall (through / completely)” or “finishes drilling the wall”

So:

Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä.
→ We see him in the middle of drilling.
Huoltomies poraa seinän keittiössä.
→ Describes the action as a whole, as if he gets the entire wall drilled.

Could I say “Huoltomies poraa seinä keittiössä” with the nominative seinä?

No, that would be ungrammatical in standard Finnish.

A normal, definite object of this kind of action is not in nominative; it must be in:

partitive (seinää) for ongoing/partial action, or
genitive (seinän) for completed/total action.

So the correct options are:

Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä.
Huoltomies poraa seinän keittiössä.

But *Huoltomies poraa seinä keittiössä is wrong.

What exactly does the ending -ssä in “keittiössä” mean?

The ending -ssa / -ssä is the inessive case, which usually means “in, inside, in the interior of.”

keittiö = kitchen (basic form)
keittiössä = in the kitchen

So keittiössä answers the question “Where?” → “Where is he drilling the wall? In the kitchen.”

Is the sentence saying he is in the kitchen drilling, or that he is drilling the kitchen wall?

As written, “Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä” most naturally means:

He is in the kitchen, drilling a wall (very likely a wall of the kitchen, but it grammatically describes location).

If you want to clearly say “the kitchen wall” as the object, you would typically mark “kitchen” as a possessor:

Huoltomies poraa keittiön seinää.
→ literally “The maintenance man is drilling the kitchen’s wall.”

So:

keittiössä → locative “in the kitchen”
keittiön seinää → “the kitchen’s wall,” i.e. the kitchen wall

Can I change the word order, for example: “Keittiössä huoltomies poraa seinää”?

Yes, Finnish word order is fairly flexible. The neutral/basic order is:

Subject – Verb – Object – Place
→ Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä.

But you can move elements for emphasis or to set the topic:

Keittiössä huoltomies poraa seinää.
→ “In the kitchen, the maintenance man is drilling the wall.”
Emphasis: where this is happening.
Seinää huoltomies poraa keittiössä.
→ Emphasis: it’s the wall he’s drilling (not, say, the ceiling).

All of these are grammatical; the differences are about focus and emphasis, not basic meaning.

How do we know this is present tense and not past or future?

From the verb form:

poraa is the present tense 3rd person singular of porata.

Other relevant forms:

porasi = drilled (past)
poraa = drills / is drilling (present)
Finnish doesn’t have a separate future tense; the present can also refer to future with context.

So:

Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä.
→ now (or generally / habitually), “is drilling / drills”
Huoltomies porasi seinää keittiössä.
→ in the past, “was drilling / drilled”

How would this sentence change if there were several maintenance men?

You would need to put the subject in plural and make the verb agree:

Huoltomiehet poraavat seinää keittiössä.

Changes:

huoltomies → huoltomiehet (plural nominative)
poraa → poraavat (present tense, 3rd person plural of porata)

Object seinää and location keittiössä stay the same.

Why is there no pronoun like “he” in the sentence?

In Finnish, you usually don’t add a pronoun when you already have a clear noun subject.

Huoltomies poraa seinää keittiössä.
→ subject is huoltomies (“maintenance man”).

A pronoun would be redundant:

*Huoltomies hän poraa seinää keittiössä. → wrong in standard Finnish.

You would use hän (“he/she”) mainly when:

the subject is only a pronoun: Hän poraa seinää keittiössä.
or for emphasis or contrast in certain contexts.