Breakdown of Me toivomme, että tänään ei sada.
me
we
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
tänään
today
sataa
to rain
Questions & Answers about Me toivomme, että tänään ei sada.
Is the comma before että required?
Yes! In Finnish grammar, you must always put a comma between the main sentence (Me toivomme) and a subordinate clause that starts with että (that). This rule is much stricter than in English.
Does the word order change after että?
No, the word order in an että clause is exactly the same as in a regular sentence. If you removed Me toivomme, että, you would be left with tänään ei sada, which is perfectly normal word order for "today it is not raining".
Where is the word for "it" in ei sada?
Finnish doesn't use a placeholder pronoun like "it" for weather expressions. While English requires a subject ("it is raining"), Finnish just uses the verb on its own. So, "it is not raining" is simply the negative word ei and the weather verb sada.
Why is the verb written as sada instead of sataa?
This is because of how negative sentences work. After the negative word ei, you use the verb's stem without its personal ending. When you form the stem for sataa, a rule called consonant gradation softens the strong double tt into a weak single d. That gives us the negative form ei sada.