Breakdown of Menemme järvelle uimaan ja katsomaan lintuja.
ja
and
mennä
to go
me
we
katsoa
to watch
-lle
to
järvi
the lake
uida
to swim
lintu
the bird
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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 katsomaan in the -maan form?
They’re second infinitives in the illative case (purpose form), marked by -maan (from uida “to swim” → uimaan, and katsoa “to watch” → katsomaan). After motion verbs like mennä, this form expresses purpose: “go … to swim” and “go … to watch.”
Why is there no second mennä before katsomaan?
Finnish allows you to omit a repeated verb in coordinated structures if the same case and form apply. Here uimaan ja katsomaan both depend on the single mennä, so you don’t repeat menemme. It’s like saying “we go to the lake to swim and [to go] to watch birds.”
Why is lintuja in the partitive plural?
Lintuja is the partitive of lintu (“bird”), plural. After verbs like katsoa when the object is indefinite or the action is seen as ongoing/incomplete, Finnish uses the partitive. It signals you’re watching some (unspecified number of) birds, not all the birds.
Why don’t we use English-style prepositions before these words?
Finnish replaces most prepositions with case endings on the nouns (e.g. -lle for “to,” -ssa for “in,” -sta for “from”). The infinitive suffix -maan carries the “to do something” meaning, so no extra word is needed.
Is the word order fixed, or could we say “menemme uimaan järvelle”?
Finnish word order is relatively flexible. The neutral sequence here is Verb – Place – Purpose: Menemme järvelle uimaan. You could say Menemme uimaan järvelle, but that shifts emphasis slightly (more focus on uimaan). “Uimaan menemme järvelle” is grammatically possible but would sound poetic or marked.