Learn Hardcore Finnish: Huomenna teemme toisen kierroksen museossa opaskirjan avulla. - Tomorrow we will do a second tour in the museum with the help of the guidebook.

Huomenna – tomorrow
teemme – we do / we make (1st person plural of tehdä)
toisen – the second / another (genitive of toinen)
kierroksen – round, lap, tour (genitive of kierros)
museossa – in the museum (inessive case: museo
- -ssa)
opaskirjan – of the guidebook (genitive of opaskirja, a compound: opas “guide” + kirja “book”)
avulla – with the help of, by means of (adessive form of apu, “help”)

A very literal gloss would be:

Tomorrow we-do the-second tour in-the-museum guidebook’s with-the-help-of.

Why is the verb teemme (present tense) used even though the sentence is about the future?

Finnish has no separate future tense. The present tense is used for both present and future, and time is shown by context words like huomenna (tomorrow), ensi viikolla (next week), pian (soon), etc.

So:

Teemme kierroksen. – We do / are doing a round.
Huomenna teemme kierroksen. – We will do a round tomorrow.

The verb form teemme itself is just “we do”; huomenna is what makes it clear the action is in the future.

How is the form teemme built, and where is the subject “we” in Finnish?

The verb is tehdä (to do, to make). Its present tense forms include:

minä teen – I do
sinä teet – you (sg) do
hän tekee – he/she does
me teemme – we do
te teette – you (pl) do
he tekevät – they do

In teemme:

tee- is the stem
-mme is the personal ending for we

Finnish verbs mark the person on the verb, so the subject pronoun me (we) is usually optional:

Teemme toisen kierroksen. – We will do a second round.
Me teemme toisen kierroksen. – Same meaning, but me adds emphasis to “we” (as opposed to someone else).

Why is it toisen kierroksen and not toinen kierros?

This is about the object case.

The basic form is toinen kierros – “second round” / “another round”.
As a direct object of a completed action (a whole round that will be done), the noun kierros takes the -n ending (genitive/accusative): kierroksen.
Adjectives and similar words agreeing with that noun also take the same ending: toisen.

So:

Teemme toisen kierroksen. – We will do a second (whole) round.
If kierros were a subject or just mentioned on its own, you’d see toinen kierros, e.g.
- Toinen kierros alkaa nyt. – The second round starts now.

What is the difference between toinen as “second” and as “another”?

Toinen can mean both:

Second (2nd in order)
- Ensimmäinen kierros, toinen kierros – first round, second round.
Another / one more / the other
- Otetaan toinen kierros. – Let’s take another round.
- Valitse toinen kirja. – Pick another book / a different book.

Context decides which interpretation fits:

In a museum context, toisen kierroksen can mean:
- literally the second round (after the first one), or
- simply another round (one more tour).

If you want to clearly mean “next” rather than numerically second, you might also see seuraava kierros (“the next round”).

Why does kierros appear as kierroksen with -n?

Kierroksen is the genitive singular form of kierros.

In Finnish, the “total object” of a completed action is typically in this genitive/accusative form:

Luen kirjan. – I (will) read the book (from start to finish).
Syön omenan. – I (will) eat the apple (completely).
Teemme kierroksen. – We (will) do the round (one complete round).

So kierros → kierroksen because it’s the object and the speaker treats it as a whole, completed event.

You could also see the partitive form in a different meaning:

Teemme toista kierrosta. – We are (in the middle of) doing a second round / we’re going around for another round (ongoing, not seen as a completed whole yet).

Why is it museossa and not museoon or museosta?

These are three different local cases:

museossa – in the museum (inessive, -ssa/-ssä)
museoon – into the museum (illative, -on/-een etc.)
museosta – out of / from the museum (elative, -sta/-stä)

In this sentence, the action happens inside the museum:

museossa – “in the museum / at the museum”

If you talked about movement into or out of the museum:

Mennään museoon. – Let’s go to the museum (into it).
Lähdemme museosta. – We are leaving (from) the museum.

Why does Huomenna end with -na? Is that a case ending?

Yes, historically huomenna is an essive case form:

huomen (an old/poetic stem related to “morning”)
huomenna – “as tomorrow / in the state of tomorrow”

In modern Finnish, huomenna is simply learned as the adverb “tomorrow”, and speakers don’t usually think of it as a productive case form anymore. The -na/-nä essive ending is still very productive in other expressions:

tänään (today) is historically similar.
tänä iltana – this evening (literally “as this evening”)
lapsena – as a child / when (I was) a child

So huomenna is idiomatic: you don’t say huomessa or huomeksi; huomenna is simply the correct adverb form.

What does opaskirjan avulla mean exactly, and how is it built?

Opaskirjan avulla literally means “with the help of the guidebook”, i.e. using the guidebook as a tool.

Structure:

opaskirja – guidebook (opas “guide” + kirja “book”)
opaskirjan – genitive: “of the guidebook”
apu – help
avulla – with the help (of) (adessive form of apu)

The general pattern is:

X:n avulla – with the help of X / by means of X / using X

Examples:

Tietokoneen avulla. – with the help of a computer / using a computer
Karttojen avulla. – with the help of maps / using maps

So museossa opaskirjan avulla adds the sense “in the museum, using the guidebook to guide us.”

What is the difference between opaskirjan avulla and opaskirjan kanssa?

opaskirjan avulla focuses on instrument / means:
- You are using the guidebook to do something.
- “by means of the guidebook”, “with the help of the guidebook”.
opaskirjan kanssa literally means “with the guidebook (together with it)”.
- Grammatically it is similar to “together with someone”.
- With inanimate things, it can sound like “along with the guidebook” or simply “having the guidebook with you”, and is less idiomatic for “using it as a tool”.

So for “we’ll do another tour using the guidebook”, opaskirjan avulla is the natural choice.

Can the word order be different, for example Teemme huomenna museossa toisen kierroksen opaskirjan avulla?

Yes, Finnish word order is relatively flexible. All of these are grammatically correct and mean roughly the same:

Huomenna teemme toisen kierroksen museossa opaskirjan avulla.
Huomenna museossa teemme toisen kierroksen opaskirjan avulla.
Teemme huomenna toisen kierroksen museossa opaskirjan avulla.
Museossa huomenna teemme toisen kierroksen opaskirjan avulla.

The first element in the sentence typically carries emphasis / topic:

Starting with Huomenna highlights the time (“Tomorrow, we will…”).
Starting with Museossa highlights the place (“In the museum, we’ll…”).
Starting with Teemme is more neutral or can emphasize the action/subject.

The original sentence is very natural, with Huomenna first to set the time frame.

Could we use a different verb instead of teemme, like käymme or menemme?

Yes, but the meaning changes:

Teemme toisen kierroksen.
- Literally: we do/make a second round.
- A common idiom meaning “we take/do another tour/round”.
Käymme toisen kierroksen.
- Also possible; can sound a bit more like “we go another round”, idiomatically similar to teemme kierroksen, but slightly less common in this exact phrase.
Menemme museoon.
- “We (will) go to the museum” – this is about going there, not about doing a tour inside.

So tehdä kierros / tehdä kierroksen is a usual way to say “do a tour / make a round” of a place.

Which grammatical cases appear in this sentence?

The main cases are:

Huomenna – historically essive, used here as a fixed adverb “tomorrow”.
teemme – verb, no case.
toisen – genitive/accusative singular of toinen.
kierroksen – genitive/accusative singular of kierros (object).
museossa – inessive singular (-ssa/-ssä), “in the museum”.
opaskirjan – genitive singular of opaskirja, “of the guidebook”.
avulla – adessive singular of apu, “with the help (of)”.

So you see:

genitive/accusative: toisen, kierroksen, opaskirjan
inessive: museossa
adessive: avulla
essive-like adverb: Huomenna

How would the meaning change if it were teemme toista kierrosta instead of teemme toisen kierroksen?

Teemme toisen kierroksen.
- toisen kierroksen (genitive/accusative): total object.
- Implies one whole, complete round that we will do.
Teemme toista kierrosta.
- toista kierrosta (partitive): partial/ongoing object.
- Implies we are in the process of doing a second round, not necessarily finishing it, or we’re describing an ongoing activity.

A similar contrast in English:

“We’ll do a second round” (complete event).
“We’re doing a second round” (focus on the ongoing action).

In the original sentence, the plan is to carry out another full tour, so toisen kierroksen is the natural choice.