Breakdown of Mies lähtee mielellään kalastamaan.
mies
man
lähteä
to leave
kalastaa
to fish
mielellään
gladly
Questions & Answers about Mies lähtee mielellään kalastamaan.
Why does this sentence use kalastamaan instead of the basic dictionary form kalastaa?
The verb lähteä (to leave / to go) always requires the action you are going to do to be in the third infinitive illative form (-maan/-mään). You can think of the illative ending as indicating movement into an action. He leaves into the act of fishing.
Why does the English translation say "goes out to fish" when lähtee usually means "leaves"?
In Finnish, the verb lähteä combined with a -maan/-mään verb is the standard, natural way to say you are "going out to do" an activity. For example, lähteä kalastamaan is "to go fishing", and lähteä syömään is "to go out to eat".
Where does the word mielellään (happily/gladly) come from? It looks like it has grammatical endings.
It does! It is built from the noun mieli (mind). It has the adessive ending -llä (on/with) and the third-person possessive suffix -än (his/her). Literally it translates to "with his mind", but Finnish uses this exact word as a very common adverb meaning "happily" or "gladly".
If I make the sentence negative ("The man doesn't happily go out to fish"), does the -maan ending change?
No, it stays exactly the same: Mies ei lähde mielellään kalastamaan. The negative word ei changes the main verb to lähde, but lähde still dictates that the following verb must be in the -maan/-mään form.
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