Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla.

We finish the game late in the evening.

Breakdown of Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla.

• me: we
• illalla: in the evening
• myöhään: late
• peli: the game
• lopettaa: to finish

Questions & Answers about Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla.

In the sentence Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla, is the subject pronoun me really necessary, since lopetamme already indicates we?

No, me is not strictly necessary here.

The personal ending -mme on lopetamme already shows that the subject is we. So you can also say:

• Lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla.
  = We (will) finish the game late in the evening.

Adding me usually adds a bit of emphasis or contrast, like:

• Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla. (…not someone else)
  We are the ones who will finish the game late in the evening.

In neutral, everyday speech both versions are correct; omitting the pronoun is very common in Finnish.

How is the verb lopettaa conjugated here, and why does lopetamme look different from the dictionary form?

The dictionary form is lopettaa (to stop/finish something). It’s a type 1 verb. To conjugate it in the present tense, you:

1. Remove the final -a(a) → lopetta- → effectively lopeta- in the stem.
2. Add personal endings:

• minä lopetan – I stop/finish
• sinä lopetat – you stop/finish
• hän lopettaa – he/she stops/finishes
• me lopetamme – we stop/finish
• te lopetatte – you (pl) stop/finish
• he lopettavat – they stop/finish

So in lopetamme:

• lopeta- = verb stem
• -mme = we

The double tt only appears before -aa in lopettaa; in other forms it reduces to a single t as part of normal Finnish consonant gradation/conjugation rules.

Why is the present tense lopetamme used even though in English we would normally say “We will finish the game late in the evening”?

Finnish does not have a separate future tense. The present tense is used both for:

• present time:
  Nyt lopetamme pelin. – We are finishing the game now.
• and future time, when the context makes it clear:
  Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla. – We will finish the game late in the evening.

If you want, you can add a future-like adverb such as huomenna (tomorrow) or sitten (then), but the verb form itself stays present.

What case is pelin, and why is it pelin instead of peli or peliä?

Pelin is in the genitive/accusative form of peli (game).

For singular nouns, the total object form (often called “accusative”) looks the same as the genitive:

• peli (nominative) – game
• pelin (genitive/accusative) – of the game / the game (as a complete object)
• peliä (partitive) – some of the game / the game in progress

Here, Me lopetamme pelin means that you finish/complete the whole game. Because the action affects the object as a whole and comes to an end, Finnish uses the total object → pelin.

If you used peliä (Me lopetamme peliä), it would sound like you are describing ongoing, incomplete activity, roughly We are stopping (some) gaming / We are in the process of stopping playing, and it would be unusual in this exact context.

Does pelin mean “the game” or “a game”? Where is the definite article in Finnish?

Finnish has no articles (no a/an or the). The word pelin by itself does not distinguish between “the game” and “a game”.

The meaning is decided by context, not by a separate word:

• In most natural contexts, Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla. will be understood as
  We will finish *the game late in the evening*
  (a specific game both speakers know about).
• In a more generic context, it could be We finish *a game late in the evening*.

So: pelin is just game in the total-object form; definiteness/indefiniteness comes from the situation, not from the word itself.

What is the difference between lopettaa and loppua, and why can’t we say something like Me loppumme pelin?

Lopettaa and loppua form a transitive–intransitive pair:

• lopettaa = to stop/finish something (takes an object)
  
  • Me lopetamme pelin. – We stop/finish the game.
• loppua = to end, to come to an end (no object)
  
  • Peli loppuu. – The game ends / is ending.

So:

• Me lopetamme pelin. is correct: we (subject) end the game (object).
• Pelin loppuu. is wrong; it should be Peli loppuu.
• Me loppumme pelin. is wrong because loppua does not take an object.

Me loppumme (from loppua) is technically possible but would mean something like we come to an end / we run out, not we finish something. That’s rarely used about people in everyday conversation.

What case is illalla, and what does it literally mean?

Illalla is the adessive singular form of ilta (evening).

• ilta – evening
• illalla – (literally) on the evening → idiomatically: in the evening

The adessive case -lla/-llä is used with many time expressions:

• päivällä – in the daytime
• yöllä – at night
• kesällä – in (the) summer
• jouluna – at Christmas (this one is inessive/essive, but -na is also common with holidays)

So myöhään illalla = late in the evening.

Why is it myöhään illalla instead of illalla myöhään? Does the word order change the meaning?

Both orders are grammatically correct:

• Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla.
• Me lopetamme pelin illalla myöhään.

The meaning is essentially the same: We finish the game late in the evening.

The default, slightly more natural order is myöhään illalla (from more specific to less specific: late + in the evening). Reversing to illalla myöhään can put a bit more emphasis on in the evening first, then specify that it is late, but the difference is subtle.

Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and adverbials like time phrases can usually be swapped without changing basic meaning; what changes is the focus/emphasis.

Can we move myöhään illalla or pelin to other positions in the sentence, and what happens if we do?

Yes, there is some freedom in word order. All of these are grammatically fine, though they differ slightly in emphasis:

1. Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla.
   (neutral: S–V–O–time)

2. Me lopetamme myöhään illalla pelin.
   Focus tends more on pelin at the end; something like It’s the game that we (will) finish late in the evening.

3. Pelin me lopetamme myöhään illalla.
   Strong emphasis on pelin (the game) as opposed to something else.

4. Myöhään illalla me lopetamme pelin.
   Emphasis on the time: It’s late in the evening that we finish the game.

In everyday speech, version 1 is the most neutral and typical, especially for learners.

What is the difference between myöhään and myöhemmin? Both seem to relate to “late” or “later”.

Both come from the same root (myöhä-, related to late), but they are used differently:

• myöhään = late (adverb of degree/time within a period)
  • Menin nukkumaan myöhään. – I went to sleep late.
  • Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla. – We finish the game late in the evening.
• myöhemmin = later (comparative, at a later time compared to another time)
  • Teemme sen myöhemmin. – We’ll do it later.
  • Voimme jatkaa peliä myöhemmin. – We can continue the game later.

In this sentence, we’re describing how late in the evening you finish, so myöhään is the natural choice.

Could we say something like Me lopetamme pelaamisen myöhään illalla or Me päätämme pelin myöhään illalla? How do those differ from Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla?

Yes, both are possible but they have slightly different nuances:

1. Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla.
   We finish the game late in the evening.
   – Focuses on bringing this particular game to an end.

2. Me lopetamme pelaamisen myöhään illalla.
   We stop playing late in the evening.
   – Uses pelaaminen (playing) as a noun-like action. It doesn’t specify which game, just that the activity of playing stops.

3. Me päätämme pelin myöhään illalla.
   We will end/conclude the game late in the evening.
   – päättää = to decide / to conclude. This can sound a bit more formal or official, like We will formally conclude the game late in the evening.

All are correct; choose based on whether you want to emphasize the specific game, the activity of playing, or a more formal ending.

How should I pronounce lopetamme and myöhään? Anything special I should watch out for?

Key points:

lopetamme

• Syllables: lo-pe-tam-me (four syllables)
• Stress is always on the first syllable in Finnish: LO-pe-tam-me.
• Double mm means a long consonant; hold the m a bit longer than in English.
• All vowels here (o, e, a, e) are “back/neutral” vowels, so they fit vowel harmony naturally.

myöhään

• Syllables: myö-hään (two syllables).
• Stress: MYÖ-hään.
• yö is a diphthong: round your lips like for y (like French u or German ü), then glide into ö.
• ää is a long vowel; hold the ä about twice as long as a short one.

Length (of vowels and consonants) is phonemic in Finnish, so myöhän and myöhään would be different words if both existed.

Why do we say Me lopetamme and not Me lopetaa? How does verb agreement work here?

Finnish verbs agree with the subject in person and number using personal endings. For lopettaa in the present tense:

• minä lopetan – I
• sinä lopetat – you (sg)
• hän lopettaa – he/she
• me lopetamme – we
• te lopetatte – you (pl)
• he lopettavat – they

Lopetaa on its own is not a valid form. The 3rd person singular is lopettaa, and me (we) requires the -mme ending: lopetamme.

So Me lopetamme pelin myöhään illalla correctly matches a 1st person plural subject with a 1st person plural verb form.