Learn Hardcore Finnish: Keskustelemme tunnilla siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa. - We discuss in class why equality is an important value at school.

Keskustelemme tunnilla siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.

We discuss in class why equality is an important value at school.

Breakdown of Keskustelemme tunnilla siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.

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Questions & Answers about Keskustelemme tunnilla siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.

What exactly does keskustelemme mean, and why is it present tense if the English translation is “we will discuss”?

Keskustelemme is the 1st person plural (we) form of the verb keskustella (to discuss, to have a conversation) in the present tense.

keskustella = to discuss / to have a conversation
stem: keskustele-
personal ending: -mme = we
→ keskustelemme = we discuss / we are discussing

Finnish does not have a separate future tense. The present tense is used for:

actions happening now
actions happening in the (near) future, especially when there’s a time expression

In this sentence, tunnilla (“in class, during the lesson”) gives the future time frame, so keskustelemme is naturally translated as “we will discuss”.

So the same Finnish form keskustelemme can mean:

We discuss / we are discussing (now, in general)
We will discuss (when a future time is clear from context)

Why do we need siitä after keskustelemme? Could we just say keskustelemme tunnilla, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa?

The verb keskustella normally takes its topic in the elative case (“out of, about”), which shows up as:

-sta / -stä on nouns: asiasta (about the matter)
the pronoun siitä (from se = it/that) for “about it / about that”

So:

keskustella jostakin = to discuss / talk about something
keskustelemme siitä = we discuss / talk about that

In this sentence, siitä is a correlative pronoun that points forward to the whole “why equality is an important value at school” clause:

siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa
= about why equality is an important value at school

Leaving out siitä here (keskustelemme tunnilla, miksi...) would sound ungrammatical or at least very odd in standard Finnish, because the verb keskustella expects that elative phrase. The pattern siitä, miksi / mitä / miten ... is very typical in Finnish.

So:

Correct / natural:
Keskustelemme tunnilla siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.
Awkward / wrong in standard Finnish:
Keskustelemme tunnilla, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.

What exactly does siitä, miksi … mean? How does this structure work?

The sequence siitä, miksi … is a very common Finnish construction:

siitä = “about that / about it” (elative of se)
followed by a subordinate clause introduced by an interrogative word, here miksi (“why”)

Structurally, it’s:

keskustelemme siitä, miksi …
= we discuss that, (namely) why …

English usually just skips the pronoun and says:

We will discuss why equality is an important value at school.

Some other examples of the same pattern:

Puhumme siitä, mitä teimme eilen.
We’ll talk about what we did yesterday.
Kysyimme siitä, miten koe arvioidaan.
We asked about how the test is graded.

The siitä is the object (or complement) required by the verb, and the miksi-clause explains what “that” actually is in content.

Could we say siitä, että tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa instead of siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa? What’s the difference?

Yes, you could say:

Keskustelemme tunnilla siitä, että tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.

The difference is in meaning:

siitä, että …
→ “about the fact that …”
Neutral statement: we’re talking about the fact itself.
siitä, miksi …
→ “about why …”
Focus on reason / justification.

So:

siitä, että tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa
= about the fact that equality is an important value at school
siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa
= about why equality is an important value at school (reasons, arguments)

The original sentence specifically highlights reasoning, so miksi is chosen.

Why is it tunnilla and not tunnissa? Both look like “in the lesson / in the hour”.

Both are locative cases of tunti (“hour; lesson, class”), but they’re used differently:

tunnilla (adessive, -lla/-llä)
– basic meaning: “on, at”
– used a lot with events, lessons, clubs etc.
– here: “during the lesson / in class”
tunnissa (inessive, -ssa/-ssä)
– basic meaning: “inside, in”
– more concrete “inside something” or “within the span of an hour”

In school context, the idiomatic expression is:

tunnilla = during the lesson, in that class

Examples:

Keskustelemme matematiikan tunnilla.
We’ll discuss it in (during) the maths lesson.
Tämä tehtävä on valmis tunnissa.
This task will be done in an hour (within one hour).

So tunnilla here is the natural choice for “in class / during the lesson”.

What does tunti actually mean, and why does it also mean “class” here?

Tunti has two main meanings:

hour (a unit of time)
- kaksi tuntia = two hours
- puolen tunnin kuluttua = in half an hour
lesson, class period (in schools / courses)
- ruotsin tunti = a Swedish lesson
- viisi tuntia koulua = five class periods of school

In school timetables, a tunti is typically a teaching period (often 45–75 minutes depending on the system), and that meaning is extended to “class, lesson” in general.

In tunnilla in this sentence, the meaning is clearly “during the lesson / in class”, not “on the hour” in a clock sense.

Why is there a hyphen in tasa-arvo? What do the parts tasa and arvo mean?

Tasa-arvo is a compound noun built from:

tasa-: related to tasa- / tasainen = even, level, equal
arvo = value, worth

So tasa-arvo literally is something like “equal value”, and in practice it means:

equality (especially equality between people: gender equality, social equality, etc.)

The hyphen is standard in tasa-arvo, and in many other words where a prefix-like element attaches to a noun:

tasa-arvo (equality)
tasa-arvoinen (equal, equality-based)

Orthographically, Finnish often uses hyphens when:

the first part is a bound element like tasa-, yhteis-, etc.
the compound would otherwise be hard to read

You should normally keep the hyphen in tasa-arvo; writing tasaarvo is not standard.

Why does the sentence say tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo instead of just tasa-arvo on tärkeä?

Both are possible, but they mean slightly different things.

tasa-arvo on tärkeä
= equality is important
(adjective tärkeä directly describes tasa-arvo)
tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo
= equality is an important value
(it classifies tasa-arvo as a specific kind of value)

So the pattern here is:

X on tärkeä arvo = X is an important value
tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo → equality is one of the values we consider important.

This fits especially well in school contexts, where schools have values (arvot) like equality, honesty, respect, etc. The sentence explicitly frames tasa-arvo as one of those values, not just as something that happens to be important.

Why is it tärkeä arvo (nominative) and not something like tärkeän arvon?

In the structure:

[subject] + on + [predicative]

the predicative (the part that says what the subject is) is typically in the nominative:

Tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo.
subject: tasa-arvo (nom.)
verb: on
predicative: tärkeä arvo (nom.)

So tärkeä and arvo are both nominative singular, agreeing with the singular abstract noun tasa-arvo.

Forms like tärkeän arvon would be:

genitive + genitive → used in different roles (for example as an object: saada tärkeän arvon, not in this copular “X is Y” structure)

The basic rule: with olla (to be) and a simple “X is Y” construction, Y appears in nominative, not in genitive, in standard cases like this.

Why is it koulussa and not, for example, koululla or kouluun?

All of these are forms of koulu (“school”), but they’re different cases with different uses:

koulussa (inessive, -ssa/-ssä)
– “in(side) the school” or “at school” in a general sense
– used for being in/at a place
→ tärkeä arvo koulussa = an important value at school / in the school context
koululla (adessive, -lla/-llä)
– often “at the school (yard/area)” as a physical location, sometimes with a nuance of “at someone’s place”
– Olen koululla = I’m (over) at the school (building/area).
kouluun (illative, -Vn or -hVn)
– “into the school, to school”
– direction toward
– Menen kouluun = I’m going to school.

In tärkeä arvo koulussa, the meaning is clearly “an important value at school / in the school environment”, so koulussa (inessive) is correct.

Can the word order be changed, for example to Tunnilla keskustelemme siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa?

Yes. Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and moving elements around often just changes emphasis, not basic meaning.

Both of these are correct:

Keskustelemme tunnilla siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.
– neutral emphasis; starts with the action.
Tunnilla keskustelemme siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.
– puts more emphasis on when/where this happens (“In class, we will discuss…”).

Finnish often places known or contextual information earlier and new or focused information later, but here both orders are natural in everyday language. The important thing is to keep:

keskustella + siitä together logically, with the siitä, miksi... phrase as its complement.

Why is there no me (“we”) before keskustelemme? Is it optional?

In Finnish, the personal ending on the verb normally makes the subject pronoun unnecessary:

keskustelemme
– -mme ending already tells us the subject is we.

So:

Keskustelemme tunnilla…
and
Me keskustelemme tunnilla…

both are grammatically correct and mean the same thing.

The pronoun me is usually:

omitted in neutral statements, because it’s redundant
included for emphasis or contrast:
Me keskustelemme tunnilla, emme kotona.
We will discuss it in class, not at home.

In the given sentence, dropping me is the natural, neutral choice.

Is there any difference between keskustella and puhua in this kind of sentence?

Yes, there’s a nuance:

keskustella = to discuss, to have a (usually two-way) conversation
– often suggests interaction, exchanging opinions, more “dialogue”
puhua = to talk, to speak
– more general: can be one-sided (a teacher talking), or just the act of talking/speaking

In this school context:

Keskustelemme tunnilla siitä, miksi…
implies a discussion, where people share views, ask questions, maybe debate.

If you said:

Puhumme tunnilla siitä, miksi tasa-arvo on tärkeä arvo koulussa.

that would also be correct, but a bit more neutral: “we will talk about…”. Keskustella highlights the idea of a discussion more clearly.