Patteri on kylmä, joten huone on viileä.

The radiator is cold, so the room is cool.

Breakdown of Patteri on kylmä, joten huone on viileä.

• olla: to be
• kylmä: cold
• joten: so
• viileä: cool
• huone: the room
• patteri: the radiator

Questions & Answers about Patteri on kylmä, joten huone on viileä.

Why is there no word for the or a in Patteri and huone?

Finnish doesn’t have articles (a/an/the). Nouns like patteri (radiator) and huone (room) are understood from context. If you need to be more specific, Finnish uses other tools (word order, demonstratives like tämä = this, se = that/it, or possessive structures), not articles.

What does patteri mean here—battery or radiator?

Both meanings exist in Finnish, but in a home/heating context patteri commonly means radiator. If someone is talking about devices/electricity, patteri can mean battery. Context decides, and the follow-up huone on viileä strongly points to radiator.

Why is the verb on used twice? Could Finnish omit it?

On is the 3rd-person singular present of olla (to be). Finnish typically keeps the copula in sentences like X on Y (X is Y), so repeating on in two clauses is normal:

• Patteri on kylmä
• huone on viileä
  Omitting on would sound non-standard in neutral written Finnish (though very informal speech can sometimes drop parts).

Why are kylmä and viileä in this form (not in a case ending)?

They are predicative adjectives after olla (to be). In Finnish, predicative adjectives usually appear in the nominative when the subject is singular:

• patteri (singular) → kylmä
• huone (singular) → viileä
  If the subject were plural, you’d typically see plural agreement: Patterit ovat kylmiä (often plural partitive) / Huoneet ovat viileitä.

What’s the difference between kylmä and viileä?

Both relate to temperature, but they’re not identical:

• kylmä = cold (often clearly cold, unpleasantly cold, or just objectively cold)
• viileä = cool (milder than kylmä, often “a bit cool”)
  So the sentence suggests the radiator is properly cold, and therefore the room feels cool (not necessarily freezing).

Why does Finnish use joten here? How is it different from koska?

Joten means so / therefore, introducing a result.

• Cause → result: Patteri on kylmä, joten huone on viileä. (The radiator is cold, so the room is cool.)

Koska means because, introducing a reason.

• Result → reason: Huone on viileä, koska patteri on kylmä. (The room is cool because the radiator is cold.)

Both are fine; they just package the information differently.

Is the comma before joten required?

Yes, typically. Joten introduces a new clause, and Finnish normally uses a comma to separate two independent clauses like this:
Patteri on kylmä, joten huone on viileä.
In very casual writing you might see punctuation reduced, but standard Finnish uses the comma.

Could I swap the order of the clauses without changing the meaning?

You can, but you’d normally also change the connector:

• With joten (result marker), the cause usually comes first: A, joten B.
• If you start with the result, you’d more naturally use koska: B, koska A.

You can create other valid structures, but this is the most natural pairing.

Does Finnish word order matter here? Could it be Kylmä on patteri?

Word order is flexible, but neutral statements usually follow subject + verb + complement:
Patteri on kylmä.
Reordering like Kylmä on patteri is possible but marked and context-dependent (it can sound poetic, contrastive, or like you’re correcting someone). For a learner, the given order is the safest default.

Why is it huone on viileä and not something like “in the room is cool” with a case ending?

Finnish often describes room temperature either by stating a property of the room (Huone on viileä) or by using a location-based structure. Both exist:

• Huone on viileä. = The room is cool.
• Huoneessa on viileää. = It’s cool in the room. (literally “In the room there is coolness,” with huoneessa = in the room and often partitive viileää.)
  The chosen sentence uses the simpler “room-as-subject” style.

How do I pronounce tricky parts like joten and viileä?

A few practical points:

• joten: the j is like English y in yes → roughly YO-ten (with Finnish short vowels).
• viileä: long ii matters (hold it longer) → vii-le-ä. The final ä is like the vowel in British English cat (but cleaner), not like ay.
• Finnish stress is usually on the first syllable: PAtteri, KYlmä, HUone, VIIleä.