Learn Hardcore Finnish: Lauantai-iltana olemme katsomassa elokuvaa, emmekä ajattele töitä ollenkaan. - On Saturday evening we are watching a movie and not thinking about work at all.

Lauantai-ilta is treated as one compound word meaning “Saturday evening” (a specific kind of evening), not just “Saturday” + “evening” side by side.

lauantai = Saturday
ilta = evening
lauantai-ilta = Saturday evening (a fixed combination)

Then the whole compound lauantai-ilta is put into the essive case with -na to mean “on Saturday evening”:

lauantai-ilta → lauantai-iltana = “on Saturday evening”

If you said lauantaina iltana, it would sound like you were separately saying “on Saturday, in the evening”, which is grammatically possible but less natural and more clumsy here. Finnish tends to pack such expressions into single compounds when they’re a common, specific concept (Saturday evening, Friday night, etc.).

What does the ending -na in lauantai-iltana mean? Why does it translate as “on Saturday evening”?

The ending -na / -nä marks the essive case.

One of the uses of the essive is to express time when something happens, especially with days and parts of the day:

maanantaina = on Monday
iltana = in/on the evening
kesällä (different case, adessive) = in summer
joulu-iltana = on Christmas Eve (evening of Christmas)

So:

lauantai-ilta (Saturday + evening)
lauantai-iltana = “on Saturday evening” (literally: “as Saturday evening”)

In English you need a preposition (“on Saturday evening”); in Finnish this temporal meaning is baked into the -na ending.

Why is it olemme katsomassa elokuvaa instead of just katsomme elokuvaa?

Both are correct, but they have slightly different nuances:

katsomme elokuvaa
= “we watch / we are watching a movie”
(simple present, neutral)
olemme katsomassa elokuvaa
literally: “we are (in the process of) watching a movie”
nuance: we are in the middle of this activity at that time.

The structure olla + 3rd infinitive in the inessive (-massa / -mässä) often emphasizes:

being in the middle of an ongoing action, or
being at some place for the purpose of doing something.

Here, olemme katsomassa elokuvaa suggests that on Saturday evening, our “state” is that we are engaged in watching a movie (that’s our current activity), not just that we watch movies in general.

What exactly is the katsomassa form? How is it built, and what does it normally mean?

Katsomassa is the 3rd infinitive of katsoa (“to watch, to look”) in the inessive case.

Formation (for katsoa):

Verb stem: katso-
3rd infinitive base: katsoma
Inessive case: katsoma
- -ssa → katsomassa

Meaning:

olla + [verb]-massa/mässä often means:
- “to be in the middle of doing X”
- or “to be (at a place) doing X / for doing X”

Examples:

Olen lukemassa kirjaa.
“I am reading a book.” (I’m currently engaged in the activity.)
He ovat uimassa järvessä.
“They are swimming in the lake.”
Olimme kaupassa ostamassa ruokaa.
“We were at the store buying food.”

So olemme katsomassa elokuvaa fits this pattern: “we are (in the middle of) watching a movie.”

What is emmekä? Why not just say ja emme ajattele töitä?

Emmekä = emme (negative verb, “we don’t”) + -kä (a connecting clitic that means “and not”).

It links two clauses with a shared subject while keeping the negative:

… olemme katsomassa elokuvaa, emmekä ajattele töitä ollenkaan.
“… we are watching a movie, and (we) are not thinking about work at all.”

Using emmekä is very natural here. You could say:

… olemme katsomassa elokuvaa, ja emme ajattele töitä ollenkaan.

but this sounds heavier and less smooth; ja emme is only used in special emphatic or contrastive contexts. Normally, in a sequence of actions with a shared subject, -kä / -kään is preferred for “and not / nor”:

En pidä kahvista enkä teestä.
“I don’t like coffee and I don’t like tea (either).”

Why is it töitä instead of työ, työtä, or something like töistä?

Base word: työ = “work, a job”.

Forms you might think of:

työ (nominative singular) – “(a/the) job; work”
työtä (partitive singular) – “(some) work” as an uncountable mass
työt (nominative plural) – “the jobs, the tasks”
töitä (partitive plural) – “(some) jobs / tasks; work” in a more plural sense

Here we have ajatella töitä = “to think about work / (our) jobs / job matters”.

Reasons for töitä:

Ajatella (“to think (about)”) typically takes its object in the partitive when the thing is abstract or not a single, countable object.
Using the plural partitive (töitä) suggests work as various tasks / job stuff in general, not one specific piece of work.

Nuances:

emme ajattele työtä ollenkaan
could mean “we don’t think about (our) work (as a whole) at all.”
emme ajattele töitä ollenkaan
feels more like “we’re not thinking about work-related things / tasks at all.”

Both can be grammatically possible; töitä is more natural here because “work” is seen as many possible tasks and obligations.

Why is elokuvaa in the partitive, not elokuva?

Base word: elokuva = “a movie, film”.

We get:

katsomme elokuvaa / olemme katsomassa elokuvaa
with elokuvaa = partitive singular.

In Finnish, partitive is often used for:

Ongoing / incomplete actions
“Some of” / “an unspecified amount of”

Watching a movie is an ongoing process during the time being described, so elokuvaa fits that aspect:

elokuva (nominative) would treat the movie as a whole, completed object.
elokuvaa (partitive) focuses on us being in the middle of watching it.

You could hear katsomme elokuvan in a context like “we will (completely) watch the movie (through to the end)”, but that has a stronger sense of completion and totality. For describing the activity at a given time, elokuvaa is the natural choice.

What does ollenkaan mean exactly, and why is it used only with negatives?

Ollenkaan roughly means “at all / (not) in any way / (not) whatsoever”, and it appears almost exclusively in negative sentences.

Pattern:

en… ollenkaan = I don’t … at all
emme ajattele töitä ollenkaan = “we are not thinking about work at all”

Examples:

En pidä tästä ollenkaan.
“I don’t like this at all.”
Hän ei ole väsynyt ollenkaan.
“He/She is not tired at all.”

Using ollenkaan strengthens the negation; without it, the sentence is still negative but less emphatic:

Emme ajattele töitä.
“We’re not thinking about work.”
Emme ajattele töitä ollenkaan.
“We’re not thinking about work at all / in any way.”

Why is there no me pronoun? Why not Me olemme katsomassa?

Finnish verb forms already show person and number, so subject pronouns (like me = we) are usually optional and omitted unless needed for emphasis or clarity.

olemme katsomassa
→ the ending -mme on olemme already tells you it is “we are”.

If you say:

Me olemme katsomassa elokuvaa,

that puts extra emphasis on me:

“WE are the ones watching a movie…” (maybe in contrast to someone else).
or it can sound more insistent or contrastive, depending on context.

In neutral statements like this, leaving out me is the most natural style.

Can the word order be changed, for example putting the negative part first: Lauantai-iltana emme ajattele töitä ollenkaan, vaan olemme katsomassa elokuvaa? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, that word order is possible and fairly natural:

Lauantai-iltana emme ajattele töitä ollenkaan, vaan olemme katsomassa elokuvaa.
“On Saturday evening we’re not thinking about work at all, but (instead) we’re watching a movie.”

Differences:

Original:
Lauantai-iltana olemme katsomassa elokuvaa, emmekä ajattele töitä ollenkaan.
→ Focus is first on what we are doing (watching a movie), then adds “and we are not thinking about work at all.”
Alternative:
Lauantai-iltana emme ajattele töitä ollenkaan, vaan olemme katsomassa elokuvaa.
→ Focus is first on what we are not doing (not thinking about work), then contrasts that with what we are doing instead, using vaan (“but rather, instead”).

So:

emmekä = “and not” (just adding a second fact).
vaan = “but rather / but instead” (clear contrast).

Both sentences are correct; they just highlight different parts of the situation.