Työskentelen tällä hetkellä pienessä yrityksessä.

I work at a small company at the moment.

Breakdown of Työskentelen tällä hetkellä pienessä yrityksessä.

• minä: I
• pieni: small
• -ssa: in
• työskentellä: to work
• tällä hetkellä: at the moment
• yritys: the company

Questions & Answers about Työskentelen tällä hetkellä pienessä yrityksessä.

What does työskentelen mean, and why is it conjugated this way?

Työskentelen is the first-person singular present form of the verb työskennellä, which means "to work." The ending -n indicates that the subject is "I," so the word alone tells you "I am working." In Finnish, verbs are conjugated to include the subject information, so there's no need for an explicit pronoun.

Why is there no explicit subject pronoun like I in the sentence?

Finnish typically omits subject pronouns because the verb conjugation already indicates who is performing the action. In this case, the suffix -n in työskentelen clearly shows that the subject is "I," making the use of an explicit subject pronoun unnecessary.

What does the phrase tällä hetkellä mean, and how is it structured?

The phrase tällä hetkellä means "at the moment" or "currently." It combines the demonstrative adjective tällä and the noun hetkellä (moment), both in the adessive case. This case is often used to indicate time or location, thus situating the action in the current moment.

How is the expression pienessä yrityksessä constructed, and what does it convey?

Pienessä yrityksessä translates to "in a small company." Here, yrityksessä is the noun yritys (company) with the inessive case ending -ssä to denote location (meaning "in"), and pienessä is the adjective pieni (small) also in the inessive case to agree with yrityksessä. Together, they specify where the work is taking place.

What role do the case endings, particularly -ssä, play in this sentence?

The -ssä ending is used to form the inessive case, which in Finnish expresses the idea of "in" or "inside." In the sentence, both yrityksessä and the adjective pienessä use this ending to show that the work is done in a specific location, namely a company.

Why is the sentence best translated as "I am currently working in a small company" rather than "I work in a small company"?

Although Finnish uses the present tense for both habitual and ongoing actions, the inclusion of tällä hetkellä emphasizes that the action is happening right now. This nuance makes it more appropriate to translate the sentence as "I am currently working in a small company" to capture the immediacy of the activity.