Learn Hardcore Finnish: Jos sataa, kuljettaja vie meidät sisään asti sateenvarjojen kanssa. - If it rains, the driver will take us all the way inside with the umbrellas.

Finnish weather verbs are impersonal and don’t take a subject pronoun: sataa literally just means “(it) rains/is raining.” So Jos sataa = “If it rains.”
Jos se sataa is non‑standard; you may hear it colloquially, but the neutral, correct form is without se.
Jos on sateista (“If it’s rainy”) is also possible, but it describes the general condition (rainy), not the event of rain itself. Jos sataa is the most direct for “if it rains.”

Should the main clause use the conditional mood (veisi)? What’s the difference between vie and veisi here?

Jos sataa, kuljettaja vie… uses the present indicative. In Finnish, present often covers a future plan/real possibility: “If it rains, the driver will take…”
Jos sataisi, kuljettaja veisi… uses the conditional in both clauses and sounds more hypothetical or tentative: “If it were to rain, the driver would take…”
Don’t mix them crosswise. Typically:
- Realistic/neutral: Jos sataa, (hän) vie…
- Hypothetical/polite: Jos sataisi, (hän) veisi…

Why is there a comma after the jos-clause?

Because a subordinate clause that precedes the main clause is set off by a comma. So: Jos sataa, … If you reverse the order, you also use a comma: … kuljettaja vie meidät sisään asti sateenvarjojen kanssa, jos sataa.

Why is it vie and not tuo or ottaa?

viedä = to take (someone/something) to a place (away from the speaker’s current point of view).
tuoda = to bring (toward the speaker’s point of view).
ottaa = to take (pick up, take hold of), not about leading/escorting to a destination. Here, the driver “takes us” (escorts us) to the inside, so vie fits. If the speaker is already inside and the driver brings people to where the speaker is, tuo would make sense: … kuljettaja tuo meidät sisään. Another good verb here is saataa (“to escort”): Kuljettaja saattaa meidät sisään asti.

Why is it meidät and not meitä or just me?

meidät is the total (accusative) object of a completed event: “take us (all the way in).”
meitä is partitive; it would suggest an unbounded/incomplete event or “some of us,” which doesn’t fit “take us inside.”
me is nominative and used for subjects, not objects. Finnish has special accusative forms for 1st/2nd person pronouns: minut, sinut, meidät, teidät.

What does sisään asti add? Could I just say sisään?

sisään = “(to the) inside, in(wards).”
asti = “up to, all the way to.”
sisään asti emphasizes completeness: “all the way inside,” not just to the doorway. Without asti, it’s still “into/inside,” but you lose that “all the way” nuance. Synonym: sisään saakka.

Is sisään the same as sisälle?

They’re near-synonyms for motion into something.

sisään is a directional adverb “in(wards).”
sisälle is the illative form of sisä and often feels a bit more “into the interior.” In most everyday contexts they’re interchangeable: vie meidät sisään (asti) / sisälle (asti).

How does asti work and where does it go?

asti is a postposition meaning “until/up to/all the way to,” and it follows the word/phrase it modifies:

kello kolmeen asti = until three o’clock
tähän asti = up to this point
ovelle asti = all the way to the door
sisään asti = all the way inside It’s synonymous with saakka. You can intensify with ihan: ihan sisään asti (“right/all the way inside”).

Why is it sateenvarjojen kanssa and not sateenvarjoja kanssa?

Because kanssa (“with, together with”) takes the genitive (singular or plural), not the partitive.

Singular: sateenvarjon kanssa (“with an umbrella/the umbrella”)
Plural: sateenvarjojen kanssa (“with umbrellas/the umbrellas”) Using sateenvarjoja kanssa is non-standard in written Finnish.

Does kanssa mean he’s literally together with umbrellas, or that he uses them? Would mukana be different?

kanssa emphasizes being “together with/accompanied by.” Here it implies he comes equipped with umbrellas and escorts you using them.
mukana means “along/with one (in one’s possession).” If you want to stress that he has umbrellas with him (rather than the joint action), you could say: Kuljettajalla on sateenvarjoja mukana (“The driver has umbrellas along”). You can also mix: … vie meidät sisään, sateenvarjot mukanaan (“… takes us inside, with umbrellas with him”), which is stylistically a bit more literary.

What exactly does sateenvarjojen mean morphologically?

sade = rain, varjo = shadow/shade. Compound sateenvarjo literally “rain-shade” = umbrella.
The linking -n- is the genitive of sade: sateen + varjo.
Plural genitive of the whole compound is sateenvarjojen (varjo → varjojen). With kanssa, the genitive plural is required: sateenvarjojen kanssa.

How do I know whether it means “the driver” or “a driver,” and “the umbrellas” or “umbrellas”? Finnish has no articles, right?

Right—Finnish has no articles. kuljettaja can mean “a driver” or “the driver”; sateenvarjojen can mean “(the) umbrellas.” Definiteness is inferred from context. If you need to be explicit, you can use demonstratives like se/ne or possessives (e.g., meidän kuljettaja = our driver).

Can I reverse the clause order without changing the meaning?

Yes:

Jos sataa, kuljettaja vie meidät sisään asti sateenvarjojen kanssa.
Kuljettaja vie meidät sisään asti sateenvarjojen kanssa, jos sataa. Meaning is the same; the comma moves accordingly. Fronting jos sataa slightly foregrounds the condition.

Can Finnish drop the object pronoun here, like some languages do?

No. Subjects can be omitted because the verb ending shows person, but objects are not recoverable from the verb. Kuljettaja vie sisään asti would leave the object unspecified (“The driver takes [something/someone] inside”), which is not the intended meaning. Keep meidät.

Would sateenvarjolla work instead of sateenvarjon kanssa for “with an umbrella”?

sateenvarjon kanssa = “together with an umbrella,” neutral way to say someone has/uses an umbrella while accompanying you.
sateenvarjolla (adessive) can mean “by means of/using an umbrella” and often feels more instrumental. In many everyday contexts either can work, but X:n kanssa is the safe default for “with X (accompanying).”

Is jos the only option, or could I use kun?

jos = if (conditional/hypothetical).
kun = when (temporal, something expected/known to happen). Here, because it’s conditional on rain, jos is right. If you meant a routine scenario (“when it rains, the driver (always) takes us in”), kun could be used: Kun sataa, kuljettaja vie meidät…