Questions & Answers about Mulla on vähän kiire, mutta mä tuun myöhemmin.
Why is the verb tuun instead of tulen?
In spoken Finnish (puhekieli), many common verbs drop syllables or consonants to become shorter. Here, the verb tulla (to come) drops the -le- from its standard first-person form tulen, contracting into tuun. You will hear this everywhere in everyday speech!
Are mulla and mä standard Finnish words?
No, they are the spoken language (puhekieli) versions of minulla (I have / on me) and minä (I). In normal conversation, Finns almost exclusively use these shorter pronouns rather than the formal dictionary versions.
The translation says "I am a little busy", but doesn't mulla on mean "I have"?
Exactly! In Finnish, you don't express being busy as an adjective with the verb "to be". Instead, you use the "I have" structure to say "I have a hurry" (minulla on kiire or colloquially mulla on kiire). The word vähän (a little) simply describes the amount of kiire.
Why is tuun translated as "I will come" if it is a present tense verb?
Finnish doesn't have a dedicated future tense. You use the present tense for both things happening right now and things that will happen in the future. Context clues in the sentence, such as the word myöhemmin (later), make it perfectly clear that the action belongs to the future.