Learn Hardcore Finnish: Kesämökin pihalla on riippumatto, jossa lepään, kun lapset uivat laiturin vieressä. - In the yard of the summer cottage there is a hammock where I rest while the children swim next to the pier.

So kesämökin piha = the yard of the summer cottage
and kesämökin pihalla = in/on the yard of the summer cottage → in the yard of the summer cottage.

The structure [thing in genitive] + [place word in a locative case] is very common:

talon pihalla = in the yard of the house
koulun pihalla = in the school yard
mökin terassilla = on the cottage’s terrace

Using plain kesämökki piha would be ungrammatical in standard Finnish; you need the genitive to show whose yard it is, and a locative ending on piha to show where something is.

What exactly does pihalla mean, and why does it end in -lla?

Pihalla is piha (yard) in the adessive case.

The adessive ending -lla / -llä often expresses:

location on a surface: pöydällä = on the table
location at/around a place: asemalla = at the station
general “at someone’s place”: Me olemme mummolla = We are at grandma’s (house)

With piha, the natural, idiomatic choice for “in the yard” is the adessive:

pihalla = in the yard / out in the yard

Two related forms you might see:

pihalle (allative, -lle) = to the yard (direction towards)
pihalta (ablative, -lta) = from the yard (direction away)

So:

Menen pihalle. = I go to the yard.
Olen pihalla. = I am in the yard.
Tulen pihalta. = I come from the yard.

Can I also say Riippumatto on kesämökin pihalla? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, you can say Riippumatto on kesämökin pihalla. It is grammatically correct and means essentially the same thing.

The difference is in focus and information structure:

Kesämökin pihalla on riippumatto…
– Starts with the place.
– Feels like you are describing what there is in that yard: “In the summer cottage’s yard, there is a hammock…”
Riippumatto on kesämökin pihalla…
– Starts with the object (the hammock).
– Feels more like you are specifying where the hammock is: “The hammock is in the summer cottage’s yard…”

Both are natural. Finnish word order is fairly flexible, but the beginning of the sentence typically presents “old” or contextual information, and the end often contains the “new” or emphasized information.

What does riippumatto literally mean, and how do compound words like this work?

Riippumatto is a compound word:

riippua = to hang
matto = carpet / mat

Literally, it’s a “hanging mat” – a nice descriptive image for a hammock.

In Finnish compounds:

The parts are usually written together as one word: riippu
- matto → riippumatto.
Only the last part of the compound normally carries the case ending:
- riippumatto (nominative)
- riippumaton (genitive)
- riippumatossa (inessive: in the hammock)
- riippumattoon (illative: into the hammock)

The first part(s) stay in a combining stem form and usually don’t inflect inside the compound.

What is jossa, and why is that form used after riippumatto?

Jossa is a relative pronoun meaning roughly “in which” / “where”. It’s the inessive form of joka (“who/which/that”).

joka (nominative) = who / which / that
jossa (inessive) = in which / where
other forms: jota, josta, jolle, jolla etc., depending on the case needed

In the sentence:

riippumatto, jossa lepään
= “the hammock in which I rest” / “the hammock where I rest”

The relative pronoun jossa refers back to riippumatto and starts a relative clause (jossa lepään) that describes the hammock.

You choose the case of joka based on its role inside the relative clause:

jossa lepään → I rest in it → inessive jossa
jonka ostin → I bought it → object, genitive jonka
jolla nukun → I sleep on it → adessive jolla

Why is the verb lepään and not something closer to levän or leven from levätä?

The dictionary form is levätä (“to rest”), but its present-tense stem is irregular and appears as lepä-.

Conjugation in the present tense:

minä lepään = I rest
sinä lepäät
hän lepää
me lepäämme
te lepäätte
he lepäävät

So:

stem: lepä-
- personal endings: -n, -t, ∅, -mme, -tte, -vät

This gives lepään, not levän or leven. The change from v to p and the stem lepä- is just part of the historical development of this verb; it’s treated as an irregular pattern learners simply have to memorize.

The important points for you:

Don’t try to form the present directly from levä-; learn the present stem lepä-.
The ä stays because of vowel harmony (there is already ä in levätä).

Why is there a comma before kun, and do you always put a comma before kun?

In Finnish, subordinate clauses introduced by words like kun, että, koska, vaikka are normally separated by a comma from the main clause.

In your sentence:

…, kun lapset uivat laiturin vieressä.
→ kun introduces the time clause “when the children swim…”, so you put a comma before it.

So yes, as a practical rule for learners:
Put a comma before kun when it introduces a clause.

There is also a comma before jossa lepään, because:

riippumatto, jossa lepään, …
The clause jossa lepään is a non-restrictive relative clause (extra information about the hammock), so it is set off by commas, much like in English:
“the hammock, in which I rest, …”

What exactly does kun mean here, and how is it different from milloin or koska?

Here kun means roughly “when / while” in the sense of “at the time that”.

… lepään, kun lapset uivat …
= “… I rest when the children swim …”
= “… I rest while the children are swimming …”

Comparison:

kun
- conjunction (joins clauses)
- can mean when (time) or sometimes because in colloquial language
- Kun tulen kotiin, syön. = When I come home, I eat.
milloin
- interrogative / relative adverb meaning when?
- used in direct/indirect questions:
  - Milloin tulet? = When are you coming?
  - En tiedä, milloin tulet. = I don’t know when you’re coming.
koska
- mainly means because as a conjunction:
  - Jään kotiin, koska olen väsynyt. = I stay home because I am tired.
- can also mean when in indirect questions:
  - En tiedä, koska tulet. = I don’t know when you are coming.

So in your sentence, kun is a temporal conjunction: it links two actions happening at the same time.

How is uivat formed, and why is it -vat and not -vät?

The verb is uida (“to swim”).

Present tense stem: ui-
Third person plural ending: -vat / -vät

Finnish has vowel harmony:

After back vowels (a, o, u), you use -vat.
After front vowels (ä, ö, y), you use -vät.

In uivat:

The stem ends in u (a back vowel), so the correct plural ending is -vat.
ui- + -vat → uivat

Full present conjugation of uida:

minä uin
sinä uit
hän ui
me uimme
te uitte
he uivat

Note: Finnish has only one “present tense”; it covers both English “swim” and “are swimming”, so context decides the best English translation.

What’s going on in laiturin vieressä? Why genitive laiturin plus vieressä?

Laiturin vieressä is a postpositional phrase:

laituri = pier, jetty
laiturin = of the pier (genitive singular)
vieressä = next to / by / at the side of (inessive form of the postposition vieressä, from noun vieri “side”)

Structure:

[noun in genitive] + [postposition in some case]

So:

laiturin vieressä = at/by the side of the pier → “next to the pier”

This pattern is extremely common in Finnish:

talon edessä = in front of the house
pöydän alla = under the table
ikkunan takana = behind the window

The genitive marks the “owner” of the spatial relation (whose side, whose front, etc.), and the postposition (in a case form) tells the kind of relation and often also the local case (here, “in at-the-side-of” → vieressä).

Could you say laiturilla instead of laiturin vieressä? What would be the difference?

Yes, you could say laiturilla, but it changes the picture a bit:

laiturilla (adessive of laituri)
- literally “on the pier” / “at the pier”
- suggests the children are on top of the pier (maybe jumping in, standing on it, etc.)
laiturin vieressä
- literally “at the side of the pier”
- suggests they are in the water next to the pier, not on it

So:

lapset uivat laiturilla
– odd image unless you mean something like they are splashing right at the pier or the context allows it; often understood as “at/by the pier”, but can be ambiguous.
lapset uivat laiturin vieressä
– clearly: they are swimming in the water beside the pier.

The original sentence chooses laiturin vieressä to make it clear they’re swimming next to the pier, not standing or sitting on it.

Why is there no word for “I” in lepään? Where is the subject?

Finnish is a pro-drop language: subject pronouns (like “I”, “you”, “he/she”) are often omitted because the verb ending already shows the person and number.

lepään
- stem lepä-
- ending -n = first person singular (“I”)

So lepään by itself already means “I rest”.

You can add the pronoun minä:

Minä lepään, kun lapset uivat…

This is grammatically correct but adds emphasis or contrast (“I rest when the children swim…”). In neutral narration, dropping minä is more natural.

How is lapset formed from lapsi, and how does it work with the verb uivat?

Singular:

lapsi = child (nominative singular)

Plural nominative:

lapset = children

Pattern:

The plural nominative of many -si nouns is formed by:
- changing -si → -se- and
- adding the plural ending -t.

So:

lapsi → stem lapse- → lapset

Agreement with the verb:

The subject is plural (lapset = they, the children).
The verb must also be third person plural: uivat.

So:

Lapsi ui. = The child swims.
Lapset uivat. = The children swim.

Using singular verb with plural subject (Lapset ui) would be incorrect in standard Finnish.