Learn Finnish: Miksi te ette lennä tänne?

To make a negative sentence for a Type 1 verb, we drop the final -a or -ä from the dictionary form (lentää) to get the stem. We also have to apply consonant gradation to make it the weak grade. Here, the strong nt in lentää becomes a weak nn in lennä. Then we just put the negative verb (ette) in front of it!

Why is the negative word ette?

In Finnish, the word for "not" is actually a verb that changes depending on who is doing the action. Because the subject is te (you, plural), the negative verb takes the matching ending to become ette.

Can I drop the word te and just say "Miksi ette lennä tänne?"

Yes, you can! Just like with positive verbs, the negative verb ette already tells us exactly who the subject is. Dropping te sounds very natural in spoken Finnish.

Why is "here" translated as tänne instead of täällä?

Finnish uses different words for location depending on whether movement is involved. Täällä means you are already in a place (static). Tänne means movement towards a place (directional). Since flying is an action coming toward the speaker, we must use tänne.