Learn Hardcore Finnish: Meillä ei ole kiire, emmekä mene kokoukseen. - We are not in a hurry, and we are not going to the meeting.

Meillä = on us / at us (adessive case of me, “we”)
The structure olla + -lla/-llä is how Finnish often says to have or to be in a certain state.

So:

Meillä on kiire literally: “On us is hurry” → We are in a hurry / We have a hurry.
In the negative: Meillä ei ole kiire → “On us is not hurry” → We are not in a hurry.

Using just Me with olla would be wrong for this expression:

❌ Me olemme kiire (ungrammatical)
✅ Meillä on kiire / Meillä ei ole kiire.

Why is it ei ole and not just ei in Meillä ei ole kiire?

Finnish negation uses a special negative verb (ei) plus the main verb in a specific form.

ole is the “connegative” form of olla (“to be / to have” in this construction).
ei ole together function like “is not / does not have”.

So the pattern is:

Affirmative: Meillä on kiire. – “We have a hurry / we are in a hurry.”
Negative: Meillä ei ole kiire. – “We do not have a hurry / we are not in a hurry.”

You almost always need both parts:

ei (negative verb, agrees with person and number)
ole (main verb olla in the special negative form)

What exactly does kiire mean here, and why is there no article like “a hurry” or “any hurry”?

Kiire is a noun meaning “hurry, rush”. In this phrase:

Meillä ei ole kiire = “We are not in a hurry.”

Finnish has no articles (“a, an, the”), so kiire by itself can correspond to:

“a hurry”
“(any) hurry”
just “hurry”

Also, this is a fixed idiomatic pattern:

olla kiire = “to be in a hurry”

You don’t say it with an adjective like in English (“we are hurried”), but with a noun possessed by the person:
Minulla on kiire, Meillä on kiire, etc.

Could it also be Meillä ei ole kiirettä instead of Meillä ei ole kiire?

Yes, Meillä ei ole kiirettä is also used, and many grammars actually prefer the partitive form kiirettä in the negative.

kiire (nominative)
kiirettä (partitive)

In general, when you negate an object or a quantity, Finnish tends to use the partitive:

Minulla on rahaa. / Minulla ei ole rahaa. – “I have money / I don’t have any money.”
Minulla on aikaa. / Minulla ei ole aikaa. – “I have time / I don’t have time.”

With kiire, both forms are heard:

Minulla ei ole kiire.
Minulla ei ole kiirettä.

The partitive kiirettä emphasizes not any hurry at all. The nominative kiire is also widespread, especially in speech. As a learner, you can safely use either; just be aware that partitive in negation is a very common pattern.

What does emmekä mean, and why not just ja emme mene kokoukseen?

Emmekä is a combination of:

emme = 1st person plural negative verb (“we don’t / we aren’t”)
-kä = a clitic meaning roughly “and not / nor” here

So emmekä mene literally packs “and we don’t go” into a single word.

You could also say:

..., ja emme mene kokoukseen.

That is grammatically fine, but in standard written Finnish it’s very common—and often preferred—to use this negative “nor”-form:

ei ... eikä ... (3rd person or when subject not explicit)
emme ... emmekä ... (1st person plural)
en ... enkä ... (1st person singular), etc.

In English we might translate Meillä ei ole kiire, emmekä mene kokoukseen as:

“We are not in a hurry, and we’re not going to the meeting (either).”
or more literally: “We are not in a hurry, and we are not going to the meeting.”

Why is it emmekä mene and not emmekä menemme?

In Finnish negative sentences, the personal ending moves from the main verb to the negative verb, and the main verb goes into a special connegative form.

For mennä (“to go”), the present tense:

Affirmative:
- me menemme – we go / we are going
Negative:
- me emme mene – we do not go

So:

menemme is the affirmative 1st person plural form.
mene is the connegative form used after a negative verb (here emme → emmekä).

Thus emmekä mene is the correct negative form for “and (we) do not go”.

What case is kokoukseen, and what does that ending mean?

Kokoukseen is in the illative case, which typically means “into / to (inside)”.

Nominative: kokous – “meeting”
Illative: kokoukseen – “into the meeting / to the meeting”

Illative often answers the question “mihin?” (“to where?”).
Examples:

talo → taloon – into the house
koulu → kouluun – to school
kauppa → kauppaan – to the shop
kokous → kokoukseen – to the meeting

So emme mene kokoukseen = “we are not going to the meeting.”

Why is there a comma before emmekä?

In Finnish punctuation, a comma is usually placed between two main clauses, even if they are joined by a conjunction like ja, mutta, sekä, eikä, emmekä, etc.

Here we have two main clauses:

Meillä ei ole kiire – “We are not in a hurry.”
emmekä mene kokoukseen – “and (we) are not going to the meeting.”

Because they are separate clauses (each with its own verb and, implicitly, its own subject “we”), standard written Finnish uses a comma:

Meillä ei ole kiire, emmekä mene kokoukseen.

How would this sentence change if the subject were “I” instead of “we”?

With I (minä), the forms change like this:

Meillä ei ole kiire → Minulla ei ole kiire(ttä).
- “I am not in a hurry.”
emmekä mene kokoukseen → enkä mene kokoukseen.
- “and I am not going to the meeting (either).”

Full sentence:

Minulla ei ole kiire, enkä mene kokoukseen.

Notice the negative forms:

emme → emmekä (we don’t → and we don’t)
en → enkä (I don’t → and I don’t)

Can the word order be changed, for example Kokoukseen emme mene or Ei meillä ole kiire?

Yes, Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and you can move elements around to change emphasis.

Some possible variations:

Meillä ei ole kiire, emmekä mene kokoukseen.
– neutral: “We’re not in a hurry, and we’re not going to the meeting.”
Ei meillä ole kiire, emmekä mene kokoukseen.
– fronting ei puts stronger emphasis on the negation: “No, we’re not in a hurry, and we’re not going to the meeting.”
Meillä ei ole kiire, kokoukseen emme mene.
– fronting kokoukseen for the second clause stresses the meeting: “We’re not in a hurry, and it’s the meeting we’re not going to.”

All these remain grammatically correct; what changes is the focus and emphasis, not the basic meaning.