Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.

Tomorrow we go to a friend's place for a visit.

Breakdown of Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.

• ystävä: the friend
• mennä: to go
• me: we
• huomenna: tomorrow
• luo: to someone's place
• kylään: for a visit

Questions & Answers about Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.

Why is the verb menemme in the present tense when the sentence talks about the future (“we will go”)?

In Finnish, the basic present tense is also used for future actions. There is no separate future tense like in English.

• Me menemme huomenna…
  = We go tomorrow…
  but in natural English this is understood as We are going / We will go tomorrow…

The time word (here, huomenna = tomorrow) or context shows that the action is in the future.
So menemme can mean:

• we go
• we are going
• we will go
  depending on the context and time expressions.

Can I leave out Me and just say Menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään?

Yes. Subject pronouns are often omitted in Finnish because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

• me menemme = we go
• The ending -mme on menemme already marks “we”.

So both are correct:

• Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.
• Menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.

Using Me just makes the subject a bit more explicit or emphatic, but it is not grammatically required.

What exactly does huomenna mean, and where can it go in the sentence?

Huomenna means tomorrow. It is an adverb of time.

It can appear in several positions without changing the basic meaning, only the emphasis:

• Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.
  (neutral: “Tomorrow” is in the middle)
• Huomenna me menemme ystävän luo kylään.
  (emphasis on tomorrow as new information)
• Me huomenna menemme ystävän luo kylään.
  (unusual in everyday speech, but possible for contrastive emphasis on tomorrow)

In everyday Finnish, the most natural are usually:

• Me menemme huomenna…
• Huomenna me menemme…

What does ystävän luo literally mean?

Ystävän luo literally breaks down as:

• ystävä = friend
• ystävän = friend’s (genitive case, like adding ’s in English)
• luo = to(wards) the place of / to the presence of (a postposition used with the genitive)

So ystävän luo literally is “to (the) friend’s (place/presence)”.

Natural translations:

• to a friend’s place
• to our friend’s (house)
• to see our friend

The word koti (home) is not mentioned, but it is understood: you are going to where your friend is, usually their home.

Why is it ystävän and not ystävä? What is that -n ending?

The -n ending on ystävän marks the genitive case, which often corresponds to the English ’s or of.

• ystävä = friend
• ystävän = friend’s

With the postposition luo, the noun must be in the genitive:

• ystävän luo = to the friend’s (place/presence)
• isän luo = to father’s (place)
• ystävien luo = to the friends’ (place) (plural genitive)

So the structure is:

• [genitive] + luo = to someone’s place / to someone.

What does luo mean, and how is it different from luokse?

Luo and luokse are basically the same word; luo is just the shorter, more everyday form.

Both are postpositions that mean “to someone’s place / to someone’s presence” when used with the genitive:

• ystävän luo ≈ ystävän luokse
• to a friend’s place / to see a friend

Luo is more common in spoken and casual written Finnish.
Luokse can sound slightly more formal or careful, but both are fully correct.

Does kylään mean “to the village”? What is going on with this word?

Literally:

• kylä = village
• kylään = into the village (illative case: movement into something)

However, in the expression mennä kylään (jonkun luo), kylään is idiomatic and usually means “for a visit (to someone’s home)”, not literally “to the village”.

So:

• mennä kylään ystävän luo
  literally: to go into the village to friend’s place
  idiomatically: to go visit a friend (at their place).

Most of the time, when you see kylään after mennä in this kind of sentence, you should think “for a visit”, not “into the village”, unless the context clearly refers to an actual village.

Why do we have both ystävän luo and kylään? Isn’t that repeating the same idea?

They overlap in meaning, but they add different nuances:

• ystävän luo = to a friend’s place / to our friend’s (home)
  → focuses on the destination/person.
• kylään (in this idiom) = for a visit
  → focuses on the type of activity (a social visit).

Together:

• ystävän luo kylään = to our friend’s place for a visit

If you say only:

• Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo.
  = We are going to a friend’s place (could be for a visit, for work, to borrow something…)
• Me menemme huomenna kylään.
  = We are going visiting tomorrow (but it doesn’t say to whom).

With both, the sentence is more specific and natural.

How would this change if I wanted to say “to our friend’s place” instead of just “a friend’s place”?

In this sentence, ystävän is already naturally understood as “(our) friend’s” from context. Finnish does not always mark “our” explicitly when it’s obvious.

If you really want to emphasize our, common options are:

• Me menemme huomenna meidän ystävän luo kylään.
  = We are going tomorrow to our friend’s place for a visit.
  (meidän = our)

You can also use a possessive-like structure:

• Me menemme huomenna ystävämme luo kylään.
  (ystävä
  • mme = our friend)
    This is grammatically correct but can sound a bit more formal or written-style.

Everyday spoken Finnish would most often just use:

• Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.
  Context tells you it is our friend.

How would I say “We are not going to our friend’s place tomorrow”?

Finnish forms negation with a separate negative verb ei plus the connegative form of the main verb:

• me emme mene = we do not go / we are not going

So the full negative sentence is:

• Me emme mene huomenna ystävän luo kylään.
  = We are not going to our friend’s place for a visit tomorrow.

You can again drop Me if you want:

• Emme mene huomenna ystävän luo kylään.

Is the word order fixed, or can I move parts of the sentence around?

Finnish word order is fairly flexible, and changes mostly emphasis, not basic meaning. Variants include:

• Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.
• Huomenna me menemme ystävän luo kylään.
• Me menemme ystävän luo huomenna kylään. (less typical, but possible for special emphasis)
• Huomenna menemme ystävän luo kylään. (dropping Me)

The most neutral and typical are:

• Me menemme huomenna ystävän luo kylään.
• Huomenna me menemme ystävän luo kylään.

Finnish tends to put new or emphasized information earlier in the sentence, but moving these adverbial parts around does not make the sentence ungrammatical.

Why are there no articles like “a” or “the” in this Finnish sentence?

Finnish simply does not have articles (no a/an or the).
Whether something is specific or general, known or new, is shown by:

• Context
• Word order
• Sometimes case/endings or demonstratives like tämä (this), se (that)

So ystävän can mean:

• a friend’s
• the friend’s
• our friend’s

You choose the right English article based on context, not from any special word in the Finnish sentence.