Minä pääsen kotiin, jos metro ei ole myöhässä.

I get home if the metro is not late.

Breakdown of Minä pääsen kotiin, jos metro ei ole myöhässä.

• minä: I
• olla: to be
• jos: if
• -iin: to
• ei: not
• myöhäinen: late
• koti: home
• metro: metro
• päästä: to access

Questions & Answers about Minä pääsen kotiin, jos metro ei ole myöhässä.

Can I drop minä here, or do I have to say it?

You can usually drop minä. Finnish verb endings already show the person, so Pääsen kotiin, jos metro ei ole myöhässä. is completely natural.
You’d keep minä mainly for emphasis or contrast (e.g., Minä pääsen kotiin, mutta sinä et.).

Why is it pääsen and not some form that “means future,” like I will get home?

Finnish typically uses the present tense to talk about the future when it’s clear from context.
So pääsen (present) can mean “I get / I will get (to)” depending on context. There is no dedicated “future tense” form that you must use here.

What exactly does päästä mean in this sentence—“arrive,” “get,” or “be able to”?

Päästä is a flexible verb. In this kind of structure (pääsen kotiin), it commonly means manage to get to / get / make it to (home).
It can also mean “be allowed to” or “get to do something” in other contexts, but with a destination like kotiin, it strongly reads as “get to/arrive home (successfully).”

Why is kotiin used instead of koti, kotona, or kotiinpäin?

Because kotiin is the illative case and answers “to where?”—movement into/to home.

• kotiin = to home (destination)
• kotona = at home (location)
• koti (as a form) is not used for “to home” in standard Finnish; you need a case ending
• kotiinpäin = towards home (direction, not necessarily reaching it)

How does the jos clause work—does it change verb forms?

Jos means if, and it introduces a conditional subordinate clause. In Finnish, you often still use the normal indicative present in both clauses (as here).
So jos metro ei ole myöhässä is “if the metro isn’t late,” with no special “conditional mood” required.

Why is the negation written as ei ole? Why not something like ole ei?

Finnish negation uses a special negative auxiliary verb ei, which is conjugated for person/number, and the main verb is in a special non-conjugated form (often called the connegative).

• (metro) ei ole = “(the metro) is not”
  Word order is ei + main verb, not the other way around.

Why is it metro ei ole and not metro ei oo?

Ei ole is standard written Finnish. Ei oo is very common in speech (colloquial), but you normally wouldn’t write it in neutral/formal text.

What is myöhässä grammatically? Why not an adjective like myöhäinen?

Myöhässä is an adverbial expression meaning “late,” historically the inessive case (“in”) of a form related to “lateness.” Finnish commonly expresses states like this with these set forms:

• olla myöhässä = to be late
  You generally don’t say olla myöhäinen to mean “be late” in the everyday “the train is late” sense.

Does ei change depending on the subject? What if it was “the metros” or “we”?

Yes. The negative verb agrees with the subject:

• minä en ole
• sinä et ole
• hän ei ole / se ei ole
• me emme ole
• te ette ole
• he eivät ole

So with a plural subject, you’d use plural eivät (though public transport like metro is usually singular here).

Why is there a comma before jos?

In standard Finnish writing, you usually put a comma before a subordinate clause that starts with jos when it follows the main clause:
Minä pääsen kotiin, jos ...
If you start with the jos clause, you also use a comma after it:
Jos metro ei ole myöhässä, minä pääsen kotiin.

Can the word order be changed? For example, can I start with the jos clause?

Yes, both orders are natural:

• Minä pääsen kotiin, jos metro ei ole myöhässä.
• Jos metro ei ole myöhässä, minä pääsen kotiin.

Starting with the jos clause can feel a bit more like setting the condition first; the meaning stays the same.

Why is metro in the basic form and not in some case like metrolla?

Here metro is the subject of ei ole (“the metro isn’t late”), so it stays in the nominative (basic dictionary form).
A form like metrolla would mean “by metro / on the metro” and would fit a different sentence, e.g., Pääsen kotiin metrolla (“I get home by metro”).