vaIkea

Vaikea is a native Finnish adjective meaning “difficult” or “hard.” It describes tasks, problems, situations, or concepts that require effort, skill, or careful thought. The opposite is helppo, meaning easy. In Finnish, adjectives generally agree with the noun they modify in number and case.

Declension and usage: The basic form is läheva? Wait, correction: The basic form is vaIkea (vaikea) in nominative singular. Common inflected forms include: nominative plural vaikeat, partitive singular vaikeaa, genitive singular vaikean, partitive plural vaikeita, and genitive plural vaikeiden. The comparative form is vaikeampi and the superlative form is vaikein. Example sentences: “Tämän tehtävän tekeminen on vaikeaa.” and “Se on vaikea kysymys.”

Context and nuance: Vaikea can describe both concrete and abstract difficulties and is used for situations, tasks, or problems rather than physical hardness. It often appears with verbs such as on or tuntuu: “se on vaikea,” meaning “it is difficult,” or with nouns in compounds like “vaikea tilanne” (a difficult situation) or “vaikea tehtävä” (a difficult task). Related terms include monimutkainen (complex) and haasteellinen (challenging), which carry similar but slightly different nuances.

See also: helppo, monimutkainen, haasteellinen.