Breakdown of Keskiviikkona menemme uuteen saunaan.
uusi
new
mennä
to go
me
we
sauna
the sauna
keskiviikkona
on Wednesday
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Questions & Answers about Keskiviikkona menemme uuteen saunaan.
Why is Keskiviikkona in the “-na” form instead of just Keskiviikko?
In Finnish, time expressions “on Wednesday,” “on Monday,” etc., are marked with the adessive case. The ending -na (or -nä after front vowels) shows “when”—so Keskiviikkona literally means “on Wednesday.”
What does the ending -mme in menemme indicate?
The verb menemme comes from mennä (“to go”). The -mme ending is the 1st person plural personal suffix, so menemme = “we go” / “we are going.”
Why isn’t there a separate word for “to” before uuteen saunaan?
Instead of prepositions like to, Finnish uses cases to express spatial relations. For “into the sauna,” we use the illative case on the noun (and its adjective), so there’s no separate preposition.
Why is sauna in the form saunaan?
This is the illative case, which marks movement into something. The basic noun sauna takes the suffix -an (after a back vowel stem) to become saunaan, meaning “into the sauna.”
Why does the adjective uusi change to uuteen?
Adjectives in Finnish agree with their nouns in case and number. Since saunaan is illative singular, uusi also takes the illative singular ending -een, becoming uuteen (“into the new”).
Why is there no article like “the” or “a” in this sentence?
Finnish does not have articles. Definiteness and indefiniteness are inferred from context rather than marked by separate words.
How would you say “On Wednesday we went to the new sauna” (past tense)?
You change the verb to past tense:
Keskiviikkona menimme uuteen saunaan.
Could you include a pronoun for “we,” or is it always dropped?
You can add me (“we”) for emphasis:
Keskiviikkona me menemme uuteen saunaan.
But it’s not necessary, since -mme already tells you the subject is “we.”