Breakdown of Menemme kirjakauppaan, koska siellä on ilmainen tapahtuma.
Questions & Answers about Menemme kirjakauppaan, koska siellä on ilmainen tapahtuma.
menemme is the first-person plural present tense of the verb mennä (to go). The ending -mme marks “we,” so menemme literally means “we go” or “we are going.”
By contrast, mennään is the passive form (3 sg) of mennä but used colloquially as a first-person-plural imperative/suggestion: “let’s go.”
- menemme = neutral statement (“we go / we are going”)
- mennään = informal suggestion (“let’s go”)
kirjakauppaan is in the illative case, which expresses movement into something. Here it marks the destination “to the bookstore.”
Formation rule for illative (singular) on words ending in -a: double the a and add -n:
- kirjakauppa → kirjakauppaa + n → kirjakauppaan
If you were already inside the bookstore, you’d use the inessive case: kirjakaupassa (“in the bookstore”).
koska is a subordinating conjunction meaning because. It introduces a reason clause explaining why “we go to the bookstore.”
- It must be followed by a subject and verb (e.g. siellä on…).
- In everyday speech you might also meet sillä (“for (that) reason”) or siksi että (“for that reason that”), but koska is the standard way to say “because” when giving a factual reason.
In Finnish, putting a comma before koska is optional.
- You can write Menemme kirjakauppaan koska… without a comma.
- Writers often include a comma to improve readability or avoid ambiguity, but it’s not a strict rule.
siellä is a locative pronoun/adverb meaning there (at that place). It refers back to the bookstore without having to repeat kirjakauppa.
- Grammatically, it’s an adverbial form of se in a locative sense.
- Placed at the start of the subordinate clause, it elegantly avoids repetition.
In existential clauses with olla (“there is/are”), singular items typically appear in the nominative case:
- siellä on ilmainen tapahtuma = “there is a free event.”
Use the partitive only for unspecific or plural instances, e.g. siellä on ilmaisia tapahtumia (“there are free events”).
- mennä kirjakauppaan (illative) = to go to the bookstore (focus on the act of going, often planning to stay or browse)
- käydä kirjakaupassa (inessive) = to visit / stop by the bookstore (often implies a short visit or a habitual action)
Use käydä when you want to stress “visiting” (as a stop or routine), and mennä when you talk about the journey or destination itself.