Learn Hardcore Finnish: Jos bussi on myöhässä, matka kestää kauemmin kuin yleensä. - If the bus is late, the trip takes longer than usual.

Jos bussi on myöhässä, ... = If the bus is late, ...
Kun bussi on myöhässä, ... = When/whenever the bus is late, ... (more factual/recurring, context-dependent)

Why are both verbs in the present tense: on and kestää? Shouldn’t Finnish use a future tense?

Finnish generally uses the present tense for both present and future situations, especially in conditional sentences and general statements. So:

Jos bussi on myöhässä, matka kestää... literally uses present forms, but it can refer to future situations just fine.

If you wanted to emphasize that this is about a specific future trip, you’d still usually keep the present:

Jos bussi on myöhässä huomenna, matka kestää kauemmin. = If the bus is late tomorrow, the trip will take longer.

What case is bussi, and why isn’t it changed?

Bussi is in the nominative case because it’s the subject of the clause (bussi on... = the bus is...). In Finnish, subjects are often nominative when the sentence is affirmative and not involving certain special constructions.

How does olla myöhässä work? What is myöhässä grammatically?

Olla myöhässä is a fixed expression meaning to be late.

Myöhässä is the inessive form (roughly “in/inside”) of a word related to lateness (myöhä), but you don’t need to analyze it literally; it’s best learned as an idiom:

Hän on myöhässä. = He/she is late.
Olen myöhässä. = I’m late.

What’s the difference between myöhässä and myöhään?

myöhässä = (be) late (a state/condition)
- Bussi on myöhässä. = The bus is late.
myöhään = late (to a time) / “until late”
- Tulin myöhään. = I arrived late.
- Valvoin myöhään. = I stayed up late.

So this sentence needs myöhässä because it describes the bus’s state.

Why is there a comma after the first part: Jos bussi on myöhässä, ...?

In Finnish, a subordinate clause (like a jos-clause) is typically separated from the main clause with a comma:

Jos X, Y. = If X, (then) Y.

This is standard punctuation in Finnish.

What is the subject in the second clause, and what does kestää mean here?

In matka kestää kauemmin, the subject is matka (the trip/journey).

Kestää means to last / to take (time):

Kokous kestää kaksi tuntia. = The meeting lasts/takes two hours.
Matka kestää kauan. = The trip takes a long time.

Why is it kauemmin and not something like kauempana or an adjective form?

Kauemmin is an adverb in the comparative form: longer (time duration). It modifies the verb kestää (takes longer).

kauan = for a long time
kauemmin = for a longer time

Kauempana would relate to physical distance (farther away), not time.

How does kuin yleensä work, and why is it kuin?

kuin is used for comparisons meaning than:

kauemmin kuin yleensä = longer than usual

yleensä means usually / in general. So the phrase compares duration to what normally happens.

Could I also say pidempään kuin yleensä? Is there a difference from kauemmin?

Yes, pidempään kuin yleensä is also natural and means essentially the same thing: for longer than usual.

A rough feel:

kauemmin emphasizes “longer in time” in a general way.
pidempään comes from pitkä (long) and can feel a bit more “measurable/length-based,” but in everyday use they often overlap.

Both are correct in this sentence:

...matka kestää kauemmin kuin yleensä.
...matka kestää pidempään kuin yleensä.