Breakdown of Arkipäivinä opiskelen suomea verkossa.
Questions & Answers about Arkipäivinä opiskelen suomea verkossa.
Arkipäivinä comes from arkipäivä (weekday) plus the ending -inä, which is the essive plural case.
So it literally means as weekdays / on weekdays, but in natural English we just say on weekdays.
The essive case is often used in Finnish for time expressions like maanantaina (on Monday), jouluna (at Christmas), and arkipäivinä (on weekdays).
Arkipäivinä is plural because you are talking about all weekdays in general, not one specific weekday.
- arkipäivänä = on a (particular) weekday
- arkipäivinä = on weekdays (in general, repeatedly)
For a habitual action like I study on weekdays, Finnish prefers the plural arkipäivinä.
Finnish normally doesn’t use separate prepositions such as on, in, at for time expressions.
Instead, it uses case endings attached to the noun.
The ending -nä (essive) on arkipäivinä already expresses the meaning of on (week)days, so adding a separate word for on would be wrong or at least unnatural.
Opiskelen is the present tense, 1st person singular of the verb opiskella (to study).
Finnish has only one present tense form; it covers both English I study (habitual) and I am studying (right now).
Context decides which English translation is more natural.
In this sentence, with arkipäivinä, it clearly has a habitual meaning: I (generally) study Finnish on weekdays.
Yes, the subject pronoun minä (I) is usually optional in Finnish.
The ending -n on opiskelen already shows that the subject is I.
- Minä opiskelen suomea verkossa. – I study Finnish online. (More emphasis on I)
- Opiskelen suomea verkossa. – I study Finnish online. (Neutral)
You normally add minä only when you want to emphasize it, for example in contrast: Minä opiskelen, mutta hän ei opiskele. (I study, but he/she doesn’t.)
All can relate to learning, but they are used differently:
opiskella → opiskelen
Focus on studying as an activity, usually more systematic or formal (school, course, language study).
Opiskelen suomea. = I study Finnish (as a subject).oppia → opin
Means to learn, to come to know (result).
Opin suomea nopeasti. = I’m learning Finnish quickly / I learn Finnish quickly.lukea → luen
Literally to read, but in some contexts it can also mean to study (especially for an exam or a specific subject).
Luen suomea. can mean I read Finnish, or in some contexts I’m majoring in Finnish / I’m studying Finnish.
Suomea is the partitive singular form of suomi (Finnish).
There are two main reasons for the partitive here:
Object of studying a language – The thing you study as a field or subject is usually in the partitive:
- Opiskelen suomea. – I study Finnish.
- Opiskelen matematiikkaa. – I study mathematics.
Ongoing / incomplete action – The partitive is often used for unbounded, ongoing activities. You don’t have a finished, countable thing called a Finnish that you completely study; it’s an open‑ended process.
So opiskelen suomea is the natural, idiomatic way to say I study Finnish.
In Finnish, names of languages and nationalities are not capitalized unless they start a sentence.
So you write suomi, suomea, englanti, ranska (Finnish, English, French) with a lowercase letter.
Proper names like Suomi (the country Finland) are capitalized, just like city or person names.
English capitalizes language names, but Finnish does not; it’s simply a difference in writing conventions.
Verkossa comes from verkko (net, network) plus the ending -ssa, which is the inessive case meaning in.
So literally it means in the net.
In everyday modern Finnish, verkossa is commonly used with the meaning on the internet / online.
So opiskelen suomea verkossa is literally I study Finnish in the net, but we translate it naturally as I study Finnish online.
All can mean on the internet / online, but they have slightly different flavors:
- verkossa – literally in the network; fairly neutral and common.
- netissä – from netti (informal word for the internet); sounds a bit more colloquial.
- internetissä – directly from internet; often a bit more technical or formal, or used when speaking very explicitly about the internet as a system.
In this sentence, verkossa is a perfectly normal, standard choice.
Yes, Finnish word order is fairly flexible, and Opiskelen suomea verkossa arkipäivinä is grammatically correct.
The basic information stays the same, but the emphasis changes slightly:
Arkipäivinä opiskelen suomea verkossa.
Emphasizes when: As for weekdays, I study Finnish online (as opposed to weekends).Opiskelen suomea verkossa arkipäivinä.
More neutral order: I study Finnish online on weekdays.
Context and what you want to highlight decide which order sounds best.
You negate the verb opiskelen using the negative verb en and put the main verb into its connegative form (opiskele):
- Arkipäivinä en opiskele suomea verkossa. – On weekdays I don’t study Finnish online.
Structure:
- en – I don’t
- opiskele – negative form of opiskella
- the rest (suomea verkossa) stays the same.
Yes, there are a few options, each with a slightly different nuance:
- arkipäivinä – on weekdays (general habitual statement).
- arkipäivisin – on weekdays / on workdays (stronger sense of routinely, as a habit).
- joka arkipäivä – every single weekday, stressing each day individually.
So you could also say, for example:
- Arkipäivisin opiskelen suomea verkossa. – I study Finnish online on weekdays (habitually).
- Joka arkipäivä opiskelen suomea verkossa. – I study Finnish online every weekday.