Questions & Answers about Mä tuun sun kanssa treffeille.
How does the standard tulen become tuun in spoken Finnish?
In colloquial Finnish (puhekieli), many high-frequency verbs contract by dropping a middle syllable. For the verb tulla (to come), the standard tulen drops the -le-, and the remaining vowel lengthens to compensate, giving us tuun.
Why is it sun kanssa instead of sä kanssa?
The word kanssa (with) is a postposition. In Finnish, postpositions almost always require the word right before them to be in the genitive (possession) case. So the spoken pronoun sä (you) must become sun (your).
Why does treffeille end in -ille?
The word for a date, treffit, is grammatically plural in Finnish. When you express going to an event or an open space, you use the allative case (the 'onto' case). The plural allative ending is -ille, making it treffeille.
The English translation says 'I will come', but isn't tuun present tense?
Exactly! Finnish does not have a separate future tense. You use the present tense for both current and future actions. Here, the context of making plans makes it perfectly clear that you mean 'I will come'.