Nyt on hyvä aika levätä.

Now is a good time to rest.

Breakdown of Nyt on hyvä aika levätä.

• olla: to be
• nyt: now
• levätä: to rest
• hyvä: good
• aika: the appointment

Questions & Answers about Nyt on hyvä aika levätä.

Why doesn’t the sentence have a subject like it, as in English “Now it is a good time to rest”?

Finnish often leaves out an explicit subject when English uses it in “dummy-subject” sentences.

In Nyt on hyvä aika levätä, the verb on (“is”) simply states that such a time exists “now”. You can think of it as:

• (Se) on hyvä aika levätä. → “(It) is a good time to rest.”

The se (“it”) is normally omitted, because Finnish doesn’t need a dummy subject. The structure on hyvä aika + infinitive is a very natural way to say “it is a good time to do X” without any subject pronoun.

What exactly is on here?

On is the 3rd person singular present tense form of the verb olla (“to be”).

The full present-tense paradigm of olla is:

• minä olen – I am
• sinä olet – you are (singular)
• hän/se on – he/she/it is
• me olemme – we are
• te olette – you are (plural / polite)
• he/ne ovat – they are

In Nyt on hyvä aika levätä, on corresponds to English “is”.

Why are both hyvä and aika in the basic (nominative) form?

In Finnish, when something is something (A is B), both sides are normally in the nominative case if you are just identifying or describing:

• Tämä on kirja. – This is a book.
• Päivä on kaunis. – The day is beautiful.

Here:

• aika = “time” (nominative, basic form)
• hyvä = “good” (nominative, agreeing with aika)

So on hyvä aika = “(it) is a good time”.

Since aika is being described as hyvä, and we’re not expressing any special function like “turning into” something or “becoming” something, nominative is the default.

Why does the adjective hyvä come before aika?

In Finnish, attributive adjectives (adjectives that directly modify a noun) usually come before the noun:

• hyvä aika – a good time
• pitkä päivä – a long day
• kaunis talo – a beautiful house

In this sentence, hyvä aika forms one phrase: “a good time”. The word order aika hyvä would mean something closer to “quite good” as a general comment, not “a good time” as a fixed phrase.

So:

• Nyt on hyvä aika levätä. – Now is a good time to rest.
• Nyt on aika hyvä. – Now (the situation) is pretty good. (different meaning)

What form is levätä, and why is it used here?

Levätä is the 1st infinitive, the basic dictionary form of the verb to rest.

After expressions like:

• On hyvä aika … – It is a good time to …
• On mahdollista … – It is possible to …
• On helppo … – It is easy to …

Finnish typically uses the 1st infinitive to express “to do something” in a general, non-conjugated way.

So:

• Nyt on hyvä aika levätä. – Now is a good time to rest.
• On helppo oppia. – It is easy to learn.
• On tärkeä muistaa. – It is important to remember.

That’s why you see levätä and not a personal form like lepään (“I rest”).

Why is the verb levätä written with -ätä, but its stem is lepää- (like in lepään)?

This is a common pattern in Finnish verbs: the dictionary form (1st infinitive) and the stem used for conjugation can look slightly different.

For levätä:

• Dictionary form: levätä
• 1st person singular: minä lepään
• 3rd person singular: hän lepää

The changes are due to:

1. Consonant gradation and vowel changes in the stem,
2. Historical sound changes that are now just part of the standard pattern.

You don’t need to derive it yourself each time; instead, you just learn that:

• levätä → present-tense stem lepää-
  
  • lepään, lepäät, lepää, etc.

What matters in this sentence is simply that levätä is the correct infinitive form after hyvä aika.

Could the sentence be Nyt on hyvä levätä without aika?

Yes, that is also a correct sentence, but the nuance is a bit different.

• Nyt on hyvä aika levätä. – Now is a good time to rest.
  Focus on the time being suitable.

• Nyt on hyvä levätä. – Now it is good to rest. / It’s good to rest now.
  Focus more on resting itself being a good idea at this moment.

Both are idiomatic, but hyvä aika explicitly mentions “time”, while hyvä alone evaluates the action.

Can I change the word order, for example Hyvä aika levätä on nyt?

Yes, Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and you can move elements around to change emphasis.

Some possibilities:

• Nyt on hyvä aika levätä.
  Neutral, common word order. Emphasis slightly on nyt (“now”).

• Hyvä aika levätä on nyt.
  Emphasises that now (not some other time) is the good time to rest.

• Hyvä aika levätä nyt on.
  Grammatically possible but sounds unusual or poetic.

The original Nyt on hyvä aika levätä is the most natural everyday version.

What’s the difference between aika and hetki if I say Nyt on hyvä hetki levätä?

Both aika and hetki can work here, but they have slightly different shades of meaning:

• aika – “time” in a broader sense; a period or general time frame.
• hetki – “moment”; usually a shorter, more specific point in time.

So:

• Nyt on hyvä aika levätä.
  Suggests this period (now, these minutes/hours) is suitable for resting.

• Nyt on hyvä hetki levätä.
  Feels a bit more like “Right now, this very moment, is a good moment to rest.”

Both are correct; which one you choose depends on how you imagine the time span.

Could the verb on be dropped in spoken Finnish, like “Nyt hyvä aika levätä”?

In very casual spoken Finnish, verbs like olla are sometimes left out, especially in short, telegraphic expressions. However:

• Nyt hyvä aika levätä without on sounds incomplete or ungrammatical in standard Finnish.
• You are most likely to hear Nyt on hyvä aika levätä in both spoken and written language.

So for learning purposes (and for correct standard Finnish), you should keep on in this sentence.