Learn Hardcore Finnish: Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä. - Midsummer is an important holiday for me.

In this sentence, minulle marks the person for whom Juhannus is important – the “experiencer”:
Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä.
→ Literally: Midsummer is an important holiday to me / for me.

Why do we say minulle and not minä or minun here?

Each form has a different function:

minä = I as the subject of the sentence.
- Minä olen väsynyt. – I am tired.
minun = my (genitive), showing possession.
- Tämä on minun kirjani. – This is my book.
minulle = to me / for me (allative), showing who is affected or for whom something is important/beneficial.
- Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä. – Midsummer is an important holiday to/for me.

So we use minulle because we are not saying “I am an important holiday” or “my important holiday”, but rather “an important holiday *for me.”*

Could I move minulle to the end and say Juhannus on tärkeä juhlapäivä minulle? Is that still correct?

Yes, that is grammatically correct. Both are fine:

Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä.
Juhannus on tärkeä juhlapäivä minulle.

The difference is mainly in emphasis and naturalness in context:

Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä.
– Slightly more neutral; the “for me” tends to be heard a bit earlier and can be felt as more closely connected to tärkeä (important).
Juhannus on tärkeä juhlapäivä minulle.
– Also natural; in speech you might stress minulle to emphasize “for me (even if maybe not for others)”.

You can also front minulle for strong emphasis on the personal aspect:

Minulle juhannus on tärkeä juhlapäivä.
– For me, Midsummer is an important holiday (implying: maybe for others it isn’t).

Why is there no word for “a” or “the” before tärkeä juhlapäivä?

Finnish has no articles (no a/an or the). The noun phrase tärkeä juhlapäivä can mean:

an important holiday
the important holiday

Context and word order tell you whether it’s more like “a” or “the” in English. In this sentence, the natural translation is:

Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä.
→ Midsummer is an important holiday for me.

If you wanted to express something more like “the important holiday for me”, you’d typically change the structure, for example:

Minulle tärkein juhlapäivä on juhannus.
– The most important holiday for me is Midsummer.

Why is tärkeä in that form? Why not something like tärkeän juhlapäivän?

In tärkeä juhlapäivä, both tärkeä (important) and juhlapäivä (holiday) are in nominative singular, because together they form a subject complement / predicative:

Juhannus (subject, nominative)
on (copula verb “is”)
tärkeä juhlapäivä (what Juhannus is → nominative)

Adjectives used in front of a noun usually agree in case and number with the noun. Because juhlapäivä here is nominative singular, the adjective is also nominative singular: tärkeä juhlapäivä.

You would see different endings if the whole phrase was in another case. For example:

Näen tärkeän juhlapäivän. – I see the important holiday.
(object; tärkeän juhlapäivän is in the genitive/accusative form)

In the original sentence, as a complement of on, we keep it in tärkeä juhlapäivä (nominative).

What exactly does juhlapäivä mean, and how is it different from juhla?

Juhlapäivä is a compound word:

juhla = celebration, festival, party
päivä = day

So juhlapäivä literally means “celebration day / holiday (day)”, i.e., a special day marked as a holiday.

Difference in nuance:

juhla
– more general “celebration, festivity, festival, party”
– can be an event, not necessarily tied to a specific calendar day
- Juhannus on tärkeä juhla. – Midsummer is an important celebration.
juhlapäivä
– emphasizes a special day on the calendar (often a public or traditional holiday)
- Juhannus on tärkeä juhlapäivä. – Midsummer is an important (holiday) day.

In many contexts, both juhla and juhlapäivä could be translated as “holiday” in English, but juhlapäivä makes the “day” aspect more explicit.

Why is Juhannus capitalized but juhlapäivä is not?

Juhannus is the proper name of a specific holiday (Midsummer), so it is capitalized, like Christmas or Easter in English.

juhlapäivä is a common noun meaning “holiday, feast day” in general, so it is not capitalized, just like holiday or festival in English when used generically.

So:

Juhannus – a particular named holiday → capitalized
juhlapäivä – a general word for a type of day → not capitalized

Why is the verb on used (3rd person), not olen (1st person), even though minulle refers to “me”?

The verb agrees with the subject, not with the person in minulle.

Subject: Juhannus → third person singular
Correct verb: on (he/she/it is)

So:

Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä.
– Midsummer is an important holiday for me.

Using olen would incorrectly make it sound like “I am to me an important holiday”, which is ungrammatical and semantically wrong:

✗ Juhannus olen minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä. – incorrect

Compare:

Minä olen väsynyt. – I am tired. (subject = minä → olen)
Juhannus on tärkeä. – Midsummer is important. (subject = Juhannus → on)

Can I drop the verb on and just say Juhannus minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä?

In normal, full sentences: no, you cannot drop on. Finnish normally requires the verb olla (“to be”) in the present tense:

Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä. – correct
✗ Juhannus minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä. – ungrammatical as a normal sentence

You may encounter the verb omitted in:

headlines, notes, or very telegraphic style
some informal spoken shortcuts

But as a learner (and in regular writing/speech), always include on here.

Is there a difference between minulle tärkeä and minusta tärkeä if I say Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä vs Juhannus on minusta tärkeä juhlapäivä?

Yes, there is a subtle difference:

minulle tärkeä
– literally “important to me / for me”
– emphasizes personal importance, emotional significance, value for my life
- Juhannus on minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä.
  → Midsummer is an important holiday for me (personally).
minusta tärkeä
– literally “important in my opinion”
– emphasizes judgment or opinion (what I think, not necessarily what I feel)
- Juhannus on minusta tärkeä juhlapäivä.
  → In my opinion, Midsummer is an important holiday.

Both are about your perspective, but:

minulle → how it matters to you personally
minusta → what you think about it (your evaluation)

How do we know that Juhannus is the subject and tärkeä juhlapäivä is the description, not the other way around?

Several clues show that Juhannus is the subject:

Position and form
- Juhannus comes first and is in nominative singular, the usual subject form.
- tärkeä juhlapäivä is also nominative but comes after on, which is the typical place for a predicative complement.
Verb agreement
- The verb on (3rd person singular) agrees naturally with Juhannus (a singular thing).
- It would be strange to treat tärkeä juhlapäivä as “being” Juhannus in this pattern.
Natural interpretation
- It makes sense to say “Midsummer is an important holiday”.
- The reverse (“An important holiday is Midsummer to me”) is possible but would have a different word order in Finnish, for example:
  - Minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä on juhannus. – The important holiday for me is Midsummer.

So in the original sentence, the structure is:

[Subject] Juhannus
[Verb] on
[Complement] minulle tärkeä juhlapäivä