Questions & Answers about Menemme järvelle uimaan ja katsomaan lintuja.
What does menemme mean and how is it formed?
Menemme is the first-person plural present tense of the irregular verb mennä (“to go”). It means we go or we are going. Finnish verbs include the subject in their ending, so there’s no separate me (“we”) pronoun here. Conjugation of mennä in present tense is:
- minä menen (I go)
- sinä menet (you go)
- hän/se menee (he/she/it goes)
- me menemme (we go)
- te menette (you pl. go)
- he menevät (they go)
Why is järvelle used and what case is it?
Järvelle is in the allative case (suffix -lle), which expresses movement to or onto the surface or vicinity of something. Here it means to the lake (often implying the shore). Finnish replaces English prepositions like “to” with these case endings.
Could you use järveen instead of järvelle? What’s the difference?
Yes, but järveen is the illative case (suffix -seen) meaning into the lake (entering the water). Use järvelle when you mean “to the lake (shore/vicinity),” and järveen only if you want “into” the water itself.
Why are uimaan and in the form?