Learn Hardcore Finnish: Istumme puun alla juomassa kahvia ja katselemassa lapsia. - We sit under the tree drinking coffee and watching the children.

The verb istua = to sit
Present tense conjugation (singular → plural):
- minä istun – I sit / I am sitting
- sinä istut – you sit
- hän istuu – he/she sits
- me istumme – we sit
- te istutte – you (pl.) sit
- he istuvat – they sit

In the sentence, istumme already means “we sit / we are sitting”, so the pronoun me (“we”) is usually dropped:

Me istumme puun alla… – We are sitting under the tree… (emphatic)
Istumme puun alla… – We are sitting under the tree… (neutral)

So there is “we” in the sentence, but it’s built into the verb ending -mme.

What are juomassa and katselemassa grammatically, and what does the ending -massa / -mässä mean?

Both juomassa and katselemassa are forms of the third infinitive in the inessive case.

juoda → juo-ma-ssa
- stem juo- (from juoda, to drink)
- -ma- (3rd infinitive marker)
- -ssa (inessive ending “in / inside”)
katsella → katsele-ma-ssa
- stem katsele-
- -ma- (3rd infinitive)
- -ssa (inessive)

Functionally, X-massa often means “in the middle of doing X / engaged in doing X”:

Olen syömässä. – I am eating (right now / in the act of eating).
Istumme puun alla juomassa kahvia… – We are sitting under the tree, drinking coffee…
…ja katselemassa lapsia. – …and watching the children.

So -massa / -mässä marks an ongoing or background activity that the subject is engaged in at that moment. Here, it describes what “we” are doing while we are sitting under the tree.

Could we instead say “Istumme puun alla ja juomme kahvia ja katselemme lapsia”? What is the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Istumme puun alla ja juomme kahvia ja katselemme lapsia.

It is grammatically correct and understandable.

Difference in nuance:

Istumme puun alla juomassa kahvia ja katselemassa lapsia.
Emphasises one overall situation: we are in the situation of sitting there, engaged in drinking coffee and watching children. It feels like a single “scene” or snapshot.
Istumme puun alla ja juomme kahvia ja katselemme lapsia.
Presents the actions more as separate coordinated verbs: we sit there, we drink coffee, and we watch children. The meaning is still very similar in practice, but it can sound a bit more like listing separate actions.

In everyday speech, both versions can describe what is happening right now. The -massa version is especially common when describing ongoing activities.

Why is kahvia used instead of the dictionary form kahvi?

Kahvia is the partitive singular form of kahvi (coffee). Finnish uses the partitive case for several reasons; here the key point is “an indefinite amount of a mass noun”.

kahvi (nominative) – basic form, “coffee” as a countable or whole item in grammar
kahvia (partitive) – “some coffee / coffee (indefinite amount)”

With verbs like juoda (to drink), when you are talking about drinking some of a drink (not stressing a specific, complete portion), the object is usually partitive:

Juon kahvia. – I drink (some) coffee / I am drinking coffee.
Juon kahvin. – I drink the coffee (the whole portion, finishing it).

In juomassa kahvia, the idea is simply “drinking coffee” in general, not focusing on finishing a specific cup. That’s why kahvia in the partitive is used.

Why is lapsia used instead of lapset?

Lapsia is the partitive plural of lapsi (child):

lapset – nominative plural, “the children” as a definite group, often all of them
lapsia – partitive plural, “children / some children / children in general”

With verbs like katsella (to look at, watch), the object is often in the partitive when:

The action is ongoing or open-ended (you’re not “completing” anything), and
The group is indefinite or not completely specified.

So:

katselemme lapsia ≈ “we (are) watching (some) children / children.”
katselemme lapset would sound odd; it would suggest some kind of complete, definite set of children being “watched through to the end,” which doesn’t match normal usage.

In this sentence, lapsia just means children in a non-specific way: some children who are there, not a particular “set” that must all be included.

What case is puun, and why is it puun alla and not just puu alla?

Puun is the genitive singular of puu (tree):

puu – nominative (dictionary form)
puun – genitive (“of the tree”)
puuta – partitive

The word alla is a postposition meaning “under, below”. Many Finnish postpositions require the noun before them to be in the genitive:

pöydän alla – under the table (pöytä → pöydän)
auton takana – behind the car (auto → auton)
talon edessä – in front of the house (talo → talon)
puun alla – under the tree (puu → puun)

So you cannot say *puu alla; it must be puun alla.

Semantically, puun alla means “under the tree” or “under a tree” – Finnish doesn’t have articles, so “a” vs. “the” is decided by context, not by the form puun itself.

What exactly is alla? Is it a case ending or a separate word?

Alla is a separate word: a postposition.

It comes from the noun ala (“lower part, area below”) in the adessive case (alalla / alla ≈ “on the lower part / below”).
As a postposition, alla means “under, beneath”.

It combines with a preceding genitive noun:

puun alla – under the tree
tuolin alla – under the chair
sängyn alla – under the bed

So the structure is:

[genitive noun] + alla → “under [that noun]”

It’s not a suffix attached directly to puu; it’s its own word that governs the genitive.

How flexible is the word order here? Could I move puun alla or the -massa phrases around?

Finnish word order is fairly flexible, especially for adverbials. Several variants are possible and grammatical, though the neutral version is the one you have:

Istumme puun alla juomassa kahvia ja katselemassa lapsia. (neutral)

Possible alternatives:

Puun alla istumme juomassa kahvia ja katselemassa lapsia.
– Emphasis shifts a bit to puun alla (“It is under the tree that we are sitting…”).
Istumme juomassa kahvia ja katselemassa lapsia puun alla.
– Still understandable; now puun alla is more strongly linked to the whole activity phrase at the end. It can sound slightly less neutral, but is not wrong.

In general:

Early placement of an element (e.g. Puun alla istumme…) often gives it focus or contrast.
Keeping puun alla right after istumme is the most neutral storytelling order: [verb] + [place] + [what we are doing there].

What is the difference between katsella and katsoa, and why is katselemassa used here instead of katsomassa?

Both verbs relate to looking/watching, but they differ in nuance:

katsoa – to look at, to watch, more neutral/basic
- katson televisiota. – I watch TV.
katsella – to look at, to watch in a more leisurely, continuous or casual way (a “frequentative”/repeated action)

Examples:

Katselen pilviä. – I’m (just) watching the clouds (in a relaxed way).
Katson elokuvaa. – I’m watching a movie (more about the concrete act of watching that specific thing).

In katselemassa lapsia, the use of katsella fits the idea of casually observing children while sitting there, not focusing on a single specific event like watching a movie. Katsomassa lapsia would also be grammatically possible, but the given sentence paints a slightly more relaxed, background-activity picture with katselemassa.

Does this sentence describe something happening right now, or a general habit, like “We often sit under the tree drinking coffee and watching the children”?

Finnish present tense can express both:

an action happening right now, or
a habitual/repeated action.

The construction with -massa (juomassa, katselemassa) often leans towards a here-and-now or concrete situation, especially without any time adverbs:

Istumme puun alla juomassa kahvia ja katselemassa lapsia.
→ Most naturally understood as “Right now, we are sitting under the tree, drinking coffee and watching the children.”

To make it clearly habitual, you would usually add an adverb:

Usein istumme puun alla juomassa kahvia ja katselemassa lapsia.
– We often sit under the tree drinking coffee and watching the children.
Kesäisin istumme… – In the summers we sit…

So as written, it sounds more like a current scene, but context can make it habitual if needed.

How can I tell in Finnish whether it means “a tree / some children” or “the tree / the children”?

Finnish has no articles (“a, an, the”). The same forms:

puun alla
lapsia

can correspond to several English possibilities:

puun alla → under a tree / under the tree
lapsia → (some) children / the children (as a group you’re focusing on) / children in general

The choice between a/an and the in English comes from:

Context (has the tree / those children been mentioned before?), and
How specific the speaker wants to be.

Finnish usually leaves this implicit; if the context is “we’re at the park where our kids are playing,” lapsia might naturally be translated as “the children” (because both speaker and listener know which children), even though the Finnish form itself is just “children (in partitive plural)”.