Learn Hardcore Finnish: Opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia, koska haluan työskennellä Pohjoismaissa. - I study Finnish and Swedish because I want to work in the Nordic countries.

You are talking about studying a language as an ongoing, incomplete activity (not a finished, delimited thing).
Languages often behave like “mass nouns” in Finnish in this type of sentence: you’re studying “some Finnish, some Swedish,” not a specific, counted unit of them.

So:

✅ Opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia.
❌ Opiskelen suomi ja ruotsi. (ungrammatical)

Why is there no word for “a” or “the” in this sentence?

Finnish does not use articles (no equivalents to English a/an or the).

The noun forms suomea, ruotsia, and Pohjoismaissa are understood from context:

suomea ja ruotsia can mean “Finnish and Swedish,” “the Finnish and the Swedish language,” “some Finnish and some Swedish,” etc.
Pohjoismaissa means “in the Nordic countries” (with the definite idea already included).

Whether English uses a/an, the, or no article at all is something you just decide when you translate; Finnish itself doesn’t mark this grammatically.

What exactly does opiskelen mean, and how is it formed?

Opiskelen means “I study / I am studying.”

It comes from the verb opiskella (“to study”):

infinitive: opiskella
stem: opiskel-
1st person singular ending: -en

So you get:

opiskelen = I study
opiskelet = you (sg.) study
opiskelee = he/she studies

Unlike English, the person (“I”, “you”, etc.) is marked in the verb ending. That’s why there is no need to add minä (“I”) unless you want to emphasize it.

Why isn’t minä (“I”) written before opiskelen or haluan?

Because the verb endings already show who the subject is.

-n at the end of opiskelen and haluan tells you it’s 1st person singular (“I”):
- opiskelen = I study
- haluan = I want

Using minä is optional and usually adds emphasis or contrast:

Minä opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia, koska minä haluan työskennellä Pohjoismaissa.
→ Emphasis: I study … because I want …

In neutral sentences, Finns normally drop the personal pronoun:

Opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia, koska haluan työskennellä Pohjoismaissa.

Why is there a comma before koska, even though English often doesn’t put a comma before “because”?

In Finnish, the rule is different from English: you almost always put a comma before subordinating conjunctions like:

koska (because)
että (that)
jotta (so that)
kun (when), etc.

So:

Opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia, koska haluan työskennellä Pohjoismaissa.

The comma is required here, regardless of sentence length. It’s a fixed punctuation rule, not a style choice as in English.

Can I start the sentence with koska instead?

Yes. The word order can be reversed without changing the meaning:

Opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia, koska haluan työskennellä Pohjoismaissa.
Koska haluan työskennellä Pohjoismaissa, opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia.

Both mean the same thing: “I study Finnish and Swedish because I want to work in the Nordic countries.”

A few notes:

The comma is still used to separate the main clause and the koska-clause.
Starting with Koska… sometimes puts slightly more emphasis on the reason, but grammatically both are equally correct and natural.

Why is työskennellä in the basic form and not työskentelen?

Because of the verb haluta (“to want”).

In Finnish, when one verb expresses desire, ability, obligation, etc., it’s followed by another verb in the 1st infinitive (the dictionary form):

Haluan työskennellä. = I want to work.
Haluan opiskella. = I want to study.
Voin auttaa. = I can help.
Aion matkustaa. = I’m going to travel.

So the pattern is:

haluan + työskennellä
not
❌ haluan työskentelen

Only the first verb (haluan) is conjugated; the second stays in the infinitive.

What does työskennellä mean exactly, and is it the same as “to work”?

Työskennellä means “to work (as in to be employed, to perform work)”.

It focuses on the activity of working, typically in a job. Another very common expression is:

olla töissä = “to be at work / to have a job”

So you could also say:

Haluan olla töissä Pohjoismaissa.
= I want to have a job / be employed in the Nordic countries.

Nuance:

haluan työskennellä – focuses on the act of working.
haluan olla töissä – focuses a bit more on the state of being employed there.

In this sentence, työskennellä is perfectly natural.

What does the -ssa ending in Pohjoismaissa mean?

The ending -ssa/-ssä is the inessive case, usually translated as “in”.

Pohjoismaat = the Nordic countries (basic form, nominative plural)
Pohjoismaissa = in the Nordic countries

So:

työskennellä Pohjoismaissa = to work in the Nordic countries

Some related forms:

Pohjoismaihin (illative) = to the Nordic countries
Pohjoismaista (elative) = from the Nordic countries

In this sentence, Pohjoismaissa is correct because you mean working in that region, not moving to or from it.

Are Pohjoismaissa and Pohjoismaat singular or plural?

They are plural.

Base form: Pohjoismaat
- maa = country, land
- maat = countries (plural)
- Pohjois- = North / Northern
  → Pohjoismaat = “the Northern countries” = “the Nordic countries”

The inessive plural is:

Pohjoismaat → Pohjoismaissa = “in the Nordic countries”

Even though English uses “the Nordic countries” as a plural noun phrase, Finnish packs that idea into a single plural case form.

Why is Pohjoismaissa capitalized, but suomea and ruotsia are not?

Finnish capitalization rules are different from English:

Names of countries, regions, peoples, etc. are capitalized:
- Suomi = Finland
- Ruotsi = Sweden
- Pohjoismaat = the Nordic countries
- Pohjoismaissa = in the Nordic countries
Names of languages and adjectives derived from place names are not capitalized:
- suomi (language) → suomea in this sentence
- ruotsi (language) → ruotsia

So:

Opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia (languages, lower-case)
…työskennellä Pohjoismaissa (proper name of a region, capital P)

What exactly are the Pohjoismaat / “Nordic countries”?

In Finnish, Pohjoismaat refers to a specific group of countries:

Suomi (Finland)
Ruotsi (Sweden)
Norja (Norway)
Tanska (Denmark)
Islanti (Iceland)

Sometimes the autonomous territories (like the Åland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Greenland) are also included in the broader sense.

This is slightly different from how English sometimes uses Scandinavia, which often means just Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Pohjoismaat is the broader “Nordic” concept.

Could I change the word order and say Suomea ja ruotsia opiskelen? Is that still correct?

Yes, it’s grammatically correct, but the emphasis changes.

Opiskelen suomea ja ruotsia
→ neutral, most natural order: what you do (study) + what you study.
Suomea ja ruotsia opiskelen
→ more emphasis on what you study, as if contrasting with something else:
- e.g. “I study Finnish and Swedish (not, say, German and French).”

Finnish word order is relatively flexible, and moving parts around usually changes focus/emphasis, not basic grammar.