Welcome to the page about the adessive case, which answers the question millä! If you’re looking for an overview about missä, mistä and mihin, look here.

1. Use of the Adessive Case (Millä)

1.1. When something is ON something

When a thing is on top of something.

1.2. When something is NEAR something

When something is near something, you will often also use -lla. Say you’re meeting a friend, and you tell them you’ll meet inside the library, you would use kirjastossa. If you’re agreeing to meet just outside of the library, maybe near the front door or in the near vicinity of it, you would use kirjastolla. Often, you will use “at” in English.

1.3. When talking about open places

By “open places” I mean places without a roof, usually outdoor places (think: a yard, bus stop, market square).

This is not a 100% clear rule, because it does come with exceptions. For example, a street is a place without a roof (kadulla), but a forest and a park do have some kind of “roof” formed by the trees inside it (metsässä, puistossa). On the other hand, some kiosks clearly HAVE a roof, but you still say kioskilla. This most probably has to do with the history of kiosks. Originally, the salesperson would be inside the kiosk, but the customers were always outside.

Because the rule is so full of holes, you might want to just learn these words by heart. There really aren’t that many of them.

1.4. Possession (having something)

Finnish doesn’t have a separate verb for “to have”. Instead it uses a different sentence construction, centered around the verb “olla”, “to be”, and the adessive case (-lla). You can read more about that in our separate article.

1.5. Traveling By

The adessive case is also used with means of transportation. You can read more about traveling by bus here.

1.6. Using a tool

Any tool you use can get -lla added to it to express that you use it to perform an action. You can find more example in this blog post.

1.7. With certain expressions of time

You can learn more about expressions of time elsewhere on my website.

1.8. In many phrases

We use the adessive case in many phrases. I currently have two articles on these:

• [olla + x:lla]: olla eläkkeellä, olla harhateillä, olla tarjolla
• [x:llani/x:llasi/x:llaan]: pahoillani, kyljelläni, suu ammollaan

2. The Formation of the Adessive Case

To signify that something is ON or AT something, you don’t use a preposition as you would in English. Instead, you add -lla/-llä (depending on the vowel harmony rules) to the word. The adessive is one of the six location cases.

You will notice that the -lla case is added to exactly the same form of the word as -ssa!

2.1. Words ending in a single vowel (-a/-ä, -u/-y, -o/-ö): add -lla/-llä

This is also true for some words ending in -i, but they generally have a different rule. See below!

2.2. Words ending in -e: add an extra -e- before the -lla/-llä

Words ending in -e get a second -e- in any case except the partitive. Words ending in -e belong to wordtype B, which means their basic form will be weak (eg. parveke, koe) and their -lla form strong (eg. parvekkeella, kokeella).

2.3. Words ending in -i

I have a separate article all about the difference between old and new words ending in -i. You could check that out after you’ve looked at the examples on this page!

2.3.1. New words ending in -i: add -lla/-llä

New words are often loanwords. Usually they’re recognisable because they resemble words in other languages, like pankki for “bank”, or paperi for “paper”. Loanwords are easier than Finnish words because they don’t undergo as many changes when you add endings.

2.3.2. Old words ending in -i: replace -i- with -e- and add -lla/-llä

Old words are very often nature words. After all, nature has been around for so long that Finns have had names for things in nature since the very beginning. The age of some words can be confusing, for example äiti (mother) is actually a new Finnish word, even though mothers have been around since the beginning of time!

2.3.3. Old words ending in -si: replace -si- with -de- and add -lla/-llä

More old words, but this time with -si at their end. This group has its own additional change

2.4. Words ending in a consonant

2.4.1. Words ending in -nen: replace the -nen with -se before the -lla/-llä

This is the same change that -nen words go through when being used in any case except the partitive.

2.4.2. Words ending in -as: replace -as with -aa- + -lla

Words ending in -as (or –äs, depending on vowel harmony rules) belong to wordtype B, so they will have the weak grade in their basic form (eg. rakas, opas) and the strong grade in the adessive (eg. rakkaalla, oppaalla). Read more about words ending in -as here.

2.4.3. Words ending in -is: two groups

For words ending in -is, we have two groups: words like kallis that get -ii- when inflected, and words like roskis which that get -ikse- when inflected.

2.4.4. Words ending in -os/-ös: replace –os with –okse– and add –lla

Words ending in -os and –ös will respectively get -okse- and –ökse– when inflected.

2.4.5. Words ending in -us/-ys: two groups

Words ending in –us can belong to two groups: some get -ukse-, others get -ude- before the adessive’s -lla. This depends on whether the word is derived from an adjective (eg. pimeä > pimeys) or not. Words which have been derived from an adjective get –ude-, while other words get –ukse-. You will want to check out this article to get the specifics.

2.4.6. Words ending in -ton: replace -ton with -ttoma- + -lla

Read more about words ending in -ton here.

2.4.7. Words ending in -in: replace -in with -ime- + -lla

Read more about words ending in -in here.

2.4.8. Words ending in -ut: two groups

Words that end in -ut/yt can belong to two wordtypes. The smallest group of the two contains words such as olut, kevyt and lyhyt. For these words, you will replace the final -t with an –e- before the addessive’s ending.

The much larger group is made up of NUT-participles such as väsynyt and tottunut. For these words, you will replace the -ut/yt with -ee- before the adessive’s case ending.

2.4.9. Words ending in -tar

Words ending in -tar are rare, but at least tytär (daughter) is a common word. In the millä-form, these words get -ttare- in place of the basic form’s -tar.

2.4.10. Non-Finnish words ending in a consonant

Loanwords and foreign names (eg. Jonathan, Facebook) which end in a consonant will have an extra -i- added before the adessive’s -lla/llä.

3. Consonant Gradation in the Adessive Case

I have a separate article on wordtype A.

I have a separate article on wordtype B.

That concludes the article on the adessive case!