Learn Hardcore Finnish: Sä sanoit eilen, että liikunta auttaa sun mielenterveyttä ja yleistä hyvinvointia. - You said yesterday that exercise helps your mental health and overall well-being.

sinä – standard, neutral/written Finnish; also fine in spoken language, just a bit more formal or careful.
- Example: Sinä sanoit eilen…
sä – common spoken Finnish, especially in southern/colloquial varieties. Very normal with friends, family, informal situations.

As a learner, you should recognize both. Use sinä in writing and in formal speech; use sä if you want to sound more colloquial and people around you talk that way.

What about sun – is that the same as sinun?

Yes. sun is the spoken/colloquial form of sinun (“your”).

Standard: sinun mielenterveyttäsi = your mental health (object form)
Spoken: sun mielenterveyttä = your mental health

In everyday speech, people very often say:

mun, sun, sen, meidän, teidän, niiden

instead of

minun, sinun, hänen, meidän, teidän, heidän

So sun mielenterveyttä is basically sinun mielenterveyttä(äsi) in standard Finnish, without the possessive suffix.

Why is it sanoit? How is that form made?

sanoit is the past tense (imperfect) 2nd person singular of sanoa (to say).

The pattern:

Verb: sanoa
Stem for past tense: sano-
Past tense marker: -i-
2nd person singular ending: -t

So:

sanoa → sano- + i + t → sanoit = you said

Other forms for comparison:

(minä) sanoin – I said
(hän) sanoi – he/she said
(me) sanoimme – we said
(te) sanoitte – you (pl.) said
(he) sanoivat – they said

Why is there a comma before että? Do I always need it?

In Finnish, you normally put a comma before että when it starts a subordinate clause (a “that”-clause).

Sä sanoit eilen, että liikunta auttaa…
= You said yesterday that exercise helps…

Rule of thumb:
When että introduces a separate clause (with its own verb), use a comma before it in writing.

Spoken Finnish of course has no commas, but in correct written Finnish, this comma is standard.

What exactly does että do here? Can it ever be omitted like English that?

Here että is a subordinating conjunction meaning “that”:

Sä sanoit eilen, että liikunta auttaa…
= You said yesterday *that exercise helps…*

Key point:
Unlike English, Finnish does not usually drop “että” in this type of sentence. You can’t normally say:

✗ Sä sanoit eilen, liikunta auttaa…

That sounds ungrammatical or at best very odd. So:

English: You said (that) exercise helps… (the that can be omitted)
Finnish: Sä sanoit, että liikunta auttaa… (että must be there)

Why is liikunta used here, and does it mean “exercise” in general?

Yes. liikunta here is a mass noun meaning “exercise, physical activity” in general.

Finnish has no articles (a, an, the), so:

liikunta auttaa…
can mean:
- exercise helps…
- physical activity helps…
- doing exercise helps…

The context tells you it’s general, not some specific single session of exercise.

What’s the difference between liikunta and urheilu?

They’re related but not the same:

liikunta – general physical activity / exercise
- walking, gym, stretching, casual running, etc.
urheilu – sports, often more competitive or organized
- football, ice hockey, athletics, competitions, etc.

In a health/mental health context, liikunta is more natural, because it’s about moving your body in general, not just organized sport.

Why is it sun mielenterveyttä and not sun mielenterveys?

Because of the verb auttaa (to help). In this structure, auttaa takes its object in the partitive case, not the basic (nominative) form.

Base word: mielenterveys (mental health)
Partitive singular: mielenterveyttä

So:

liikunta auttaa sun mielenterveyttä
Literally: exercise helps your mental health
Grammatically: auttaa + partitive object

The -tä ending is the partitive singular marker (here spelled -ttä because of vowel harmony and consonant gradation).

More examples with auttaa + partitive:

Tämä lääke auttaa päänsärkyä. – This medicine helps (with) headache.
Kahvi auttaa väsymystä. – Coffee helps (with) tiredness.

Why is it yleistä hyvinvointia and not just yleinen hyvinvointi?

Two things are happening here:

hyvinvointi (well-being) is also the object of auttaa, so it also goes into partitive singular:
- Base: hyvinvointi
- Partitive: hyvinvointia
yleistä is the adjective yleinen (general) agreeing with hyvinvointia.
Adjectives must match the noun’s case and number:
- nominative: yleinen hyvinvointi – general well-being
- partitive: yleistä hyvinvointia – (some) general well-being (as object of auttaa)

So in the sentence:

liikunta auttaa sun mielenterveyttä ja yleistä hyvinvointia
both mielenterveyttä and yleistä hyvinvointia are partitive objects of auttaa.

Does auttaa always take the partitive, and what about people – could we say auttaa sinua?

auttaa behaves like this:

When it has a direct object (a thing or state that is being improved/relieved), that object is typically in the partitive:
- liikunta auttaa mielenterveyttä – exercise helps (your) mental health
- lääke auttaa päänsärkyä – the medicine helps (with) headache
When talking about helping a person, you usually put the person in the partitive too:
- Minä autan sinua. – I help you.
- Voinko auttaa sua? – Can I help you? (spoken)

So yes, auttaa + partitive is very typical. What changes is who or what is the object:

In your sentence, the things being helped are
sun mielenterveyttä and yleistä hyvinvointia (mental health and well-being).
If you said:
Liikunta auttaa sua. – Exercise helps you.
then you are the (partitive) object.

Why is yleistä in the same case as hyvinvointia?

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

Here:

Noun: hyvinvointia – partitive singular
Adjective: yleistä (from yleinen) – also partitive singular

So you must say:

yleistä hyvinvointia (both partitive), not
✗ yleinen hyvinvointia
✗ yleistä hyvinvointi

This agreement rule is very regular in Finnish:

hyvä kirja – good book (nom.)
hyvää kirjaa – (some) good book (part.)
hyvät kirjat – good books (pl. nom.)
hyviä kirjoja – (some) good books (pl. part.)

Can I change the word order, for example Eilen sä sanoit… or Sä eilen sanoit…?

Yes, Finnish word order is flexible, especially with adverbs like eilen (yesterday).

All of these are possible:

Sä sanoit eilen, että… – neutral, very natural.
Eilen sä sanoit, että… – also natural; puts a bit more emphasis on yesterday.
Sä eilen sanoit, että… – possible, but can sound a bit more marked/emphatic or stylistically specific.

For everyday speech, Sä sanoit eilen, että… and Eilen sä sanoit, että… are the most typical choices.

How would this sentence look in more formal written Finnish?

A more standard/written-style version might be:

Sinä sanoit eilen, että liikunta auttaa mielenterveyttäsi ja yleistä hyvinvointiasi.

Changes compared to the original:

sä → sinä (spoken → standard)
sun → dropped and replaced by possessive suffix -si:
- mielenterveyttäsi – your mental health
- hyvinvointiasi – your well-being

Using the possessive suffix -si is more characteristic of formal or careful written language. In spoken Finnish people often do not use the suffix and rely on sun instead:

sun mielenterveyttä ja yleistä hyvinvointia (spoken)
vs.
mielenterveyttäsi ja yleistä hyvinvointiasi (formal written)

What are the main spoken-Finnish features in this sentence that I should recognize?

The sentence is clearly colloquial/spoken Finnish. Main features:

sä instead of sinä – colloquial 2nd person singular pronoun.
sun instead of sinun – colloquial genitive pronoun your.
No possessive suffix -si on the nouns:
- sun mielenterveyttä instead of mielenterveyttäsi
- sun yleistä hyvinvointia instead of yleistä hyvinvointiasi

These are all extremely common in everyday spoken Finnish.
As a learner, you should be able to:

recognize both the spoken forms (sä, sun, mun, sua…) and the standard forms (sinä, sinun, minun, sinua…)
use at least the standard forms; you can add the colloquial ones as you get more comfortable with spoken language.