Learn Hardcore Finnish: Tenniskentän vieressä on pieni puisto, jossa äitini kävelee. - Next to the tennis court there is a small park where my mother walks.

In this sentence, Tenniskentän vieressä literally means “by the side of the tennis court”.
The genitive (-n) is used because vieressä (next to, by) historically behaves like a postposition that takes its complement in the genitive:

talon vieressä = next to the house
koulun vieressä = next to the school
tenniskentän vieressä = next to the tennis court

What form is vieressä, and what does it mean?

vieressä is in the inessive case (the “in/inside” case) of the word vieri (“side, edge”), but in modern Finnish it’s used almost like a fixed adverb meaning “next to / beside / by”.

Breakdown:

vieri = side, immediate vicinity
vieressä = “in/at the side (of something)” → next to, by

It typically combines with a genitive noun:

talon vieressä = next to the house
autotien vieressä = next to the road
tenniskentän vieressä = next to the tennis court

Why is the word order “Tenniskentän vieressä on pieni puisto” instead of “Pieni puisto on tenniskentän vieressä”?

Both word orders are grammatically correct, but they have different information focus.

Tenniskentän vieressä on pieni puisto
- Typical existential sentence structure: [place] + on + [new thing]
- Used when introducing something new in a location.
- Roughly: “There is a small park next to the tennis court.”
- Focus: the existence of the small park in that place.
Pieni puisto on tenniskentän vieressä
- Subject-first order: [known thing] + on + [location]
- Used when the park is already known and you are telling where it is.
- Roughly: “The small park is next to the tennis court.”
- Focus: the location of the already-known park.

So the original sentence is structured to introduce the small park as something that exists by the tennis court, not to identify its location as already-known information.

Why is puisto in the basic form (nominative) and not in some case related to location?

In Tenniskentän vieressä on pieni puisto, the noun puisto is the logical subject of the sentence, so it appears in the nominative singular:

pieni puisto = a small park (subject)

The location is already expressed by Tenniskentän vieressä (“next to the tennis court”), so puisto itself doesn’t need a location case ending. The structure is:

[Location phrase in a case] + on + [subject in nominative]

Examples with the same pattern:

Pihalla on koira. = There is a dog in the yard.
Järven rannalla on mökki. = There is a cottage on the lake shore.
Tenniskentän vieressä on pieni puisto. = There is a small park next to the tennis court.

What exactly is jossa, and how is it formed?

jossa is a relative pronoun meaning “where / in which” here.

It comes from:

joka = which / that (relative pronoun)
- -ssa (inessive case, “in”)

So:

joka → jossa = “in which”

It refers back to pieni puisto:

pieni puisto, jossa äitini kävelee
= “the small park in which my mother walks” → “the small park where my mother walks.”

Common case forms of joka:

nominative: joka (which/that)
genitive: jonka (whose/of which)
partitive: jota
inessive: jossa (in which/where)
elative: josta (from which)
illative: johon / jokaAN (into which)

Why is there a comma before jossa?

Finnish uses a comma to separate a subordinate clause (a dependent clause) from the main clause.

Main clause: Tenniskentän vieressä on pieni puisto
Relative clause: jossa äitini kävelee

Because jossa äitini kävelee is a dependent clause that gives extra information about pieni puisto, you put a comma before jossa:

..., jossa äitini kävelee.

This is similar to English:

“…a small park, where my mother walks.”

Why is it äitini and not minun äiti here?

Äitini means “my mother”. It’s formed by adding the possessive suffix -ni (“my”) to äiti (mother):

äiti = mother
äitini = my mother

You can also say:

minun äiti = my mother
minun äitini = my mother (more emphatic or formal)

Differences:

äitini is compact and quite typical in written Finnish.
minun äiti is common in spoken language.
minun äitini explicitly repeats the possession twice (minun + -ni) and can sound more emphatic: my mother (not someone else’s).

In this sentence, äitini is perfectly natural and neutral.

Does äitini always mean “my mother”, or could it mean “the mother” in some general sense?

In standard Finnish, äitini always indicates possession: it means “my mother”.

äiti alone can mean “mother” in a general or context-dependent sense:
- Äiti tuli kotiin. = (My) mother came home. (Context clarifies whose.)
äitini tuli kotiin. = My mother came home. The -ni makes it unambiguously “my”.

So in jossa äitini kävelee, it clearly means “where my mother walks.”

Why is the verb kävelee in the present tense? English would say “is walking”.

Finnish doesn’t have a separate progressive tense like English “is walking”. The simple present covers both:

hän kävelee can mean:
- “he/she walks” (habitually), or
- “he/she is walking” (right now)

Context tells you which meaning is intended. In:

jossa äitini kävelee

it can be understood as:

“where my mother walks (regularly)”
or
“where my mother is walking (at the moment / these days)”

Finnish does not need a special form; the plain present kävelee is used.

Could the word order inside the relative clause be “jossa kävelee äitini” instead of “jossa äitini kävelee”?

Yes, jossa kävelee äitini is grammatically correct, but the nuance changes slightly.

jossa äitini kävelee
- Neutral, subject (äitini) first.
- Simple statement: “where my mother walks.”
jossa kävelee äitini
- The verb is fronted, and äitini appears later, often making it a bit more emphatic:
- More like: “where (it is) my mother (who) walks.”
- This kind of word order can add a slight contrastive or stylistic emphasis.

For straightforward, neutral description, jossa äitini kävelee is the most typical.

Why can’t we say “Pieni puisto on tenniskentän vieressä, jossa äitini kävelee”?

That sentence is grammatically possible, but it sounds awkward and confusing in Finnish because of how jossa attaches.

In Finnish, jossa normally refers back to the closest suitable noun with a matching case role. In:

Pieni puisto on tenniskentän vieressä, jossa äitini kävelee

the nearest noun is vieressä, which is not a noun but a location word, and the clearest actual noun before that is tenniskentän (tennis court). So the listener might interpret:

“…next to the tennis court, where my mother walks”

i.e. that your mother walks at the tennis court, not in the park.

By saying:

Tenniskentän vieressä on pieni puisto, jossa äitini kävelee.

you make pieni puisto the obvious antecedent of jossa, so it clearly means:

“…a small park, where my mother walks.”

What is the difference between vieressä and lähellä?

Both refer to proximity, but with different strength:

vieressä = right next to, immediately beside
- Tenniskentän vieressä on pieni puisto.
- The park is directly next to the tennis court.
lähellä = near, close by (but not necessarily touching)
- Tenniskentän lähellä on pieni puisto.
- The park is near the tennis court, maybe a short walk away.

So vieressä is “beside” / “right by”, while lähellä is “near” / “in the vicinity”.

How do adjective and noun agree in pieni puisto?

In Finnish, adjectives must agree in case and number with the noun they modify.

Here:

pieni = small (adjective, nominative singular)
puisto = park (noun, nominative singular)

Because puisto is the subject in the nominative singular, the adjective also appears as pieni, nominative singular.

If we changed the case or number, both would change:

pienessä puistossa = in the small park (inessive singular)
pienet puistot = the small parks (nominative plural)
pienten puistojen = of the small parks (genitive plural)

In the sentence, pieni puisto is a straightforward nominative subject phrase.

Is there any article in Finnish like “a” or “the” in “a small park”?

Finnish has no articles like English “a” or “the”. The phrase:

pieni puisto

can mean:

“a small park”
“the small park” depending entirely on context.

The sentence structure and what has already been mentioned in the conversation determine whether you understand it as introducing a new park or referring back to the already-known park. Here, as an existential sentence introducing something, it naturally corresponds to “a small park” in English.