Do you know what to answer when someone asks you “Missä asut”? This article will help you pick the right case: the inessive (-ssa) or the adessive (-lla)!

1. Missä sinä asut?

Here are the basic rules. You can read more about these things when scrolling down, but if you’re a beginner, this section should contain everything that you absolutely have to know.

2. Missä asut? Placenames with -ssa

The general rule to answer the question “missä asut” is to add -ssa/ssä behind placesnames when you mean “in” (the inessive case). However, there are also places that will get the -lla ending (the adessive case). In addition, sometimes one placename can have both forms: e.g. Velkuassa ~ Velkualla; Mynämäellä ~ Mynämäessä.

2.1. Regular placenames

2.2. International Placenames

Countries, cities and other places abroad usually get inflected using the inessive -ssa.

However, there are some exceptions. Russia will inflect as Venäjällä : Venäjältä : Venäjälle. It has been theorized that this is due to Russia’s large size. It is possible that Russia has been seen as a wide, continuous land; which is one of the causes of using the -lla.

3. Missä asut? Placenames with -lla

3.1. You just have to know

Sometimes the usage of -lla can be traced back to the name having referred to a place near water (#1). This is the case for Raumalla, Tampereella, and Vantaalla. However, this isn’t always the case. We say Maaningalla, Hyvinkäällä, and Kiteellä regardless of the fact that they are not near water (#2).

3.2. Nature placenames

Commonly, placenames that end in a nature word will get the -lla ending (the adessive case). Words like this include “järvi” (lake), “joki” (river), “lampi” (pond), “vesi” (water), “virta” (stream), “lahti” (gulf), “mäki” (hill), “niemi” (cape), “salmi” (strait) or “koski” (rapids).

4. Interesting Titbits about Placenames

4.1. Placenames of Islands

Many Finnish islands’ names (#1) will inflect in the -ssa form. In contrast, for most international islands (#2), both versions are considered correct. When you’re dealing with an island (group) in the plural (#3), the -lla marker is preferred.

4.2. Placenames that start with an adjective

Did you know you can have a placename inflect into the location cases TWICE within ONE WORD? This is possible for placenames that have an adjective at their beginning (#1).

While these placenames are written as one word, both parts will be inflected like they’d be separate words. Both parts either inflect in the same case, so you will have either two times -ssa, or two times -lla. I think it’s interesting that this rule also applies to international placenames.

There are of course some exceptions to this phenomenon. Some of those just are due to how they’ve been inflected in history (#2).

4.3. Placenames that end in -nen

Most place names that end in -nen will be inflected in the plural instead of the singular. The placename Kaustinen is an exception to this rule: the locals do use the singular forms for it (e.g. Kaustisella).

5. Consonant Gradation

In general, Finnish placenames undergo consonant gradation in the same way as any other kinds of nouns.

Missä sinä asut? Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

Hyllyllä or Hyllyssä? Pöydässä or Pöydällä? At the Store – Kaupassa Kolari – Auto-onnettomuus – Car Accident Vocabulary Minä käyn kaupassa – Käydä – Example Sentences