Learn Hardcore Finnish: Minäkin haluan halata ystävääni, mutta hän on vielä töissä. - I also want to hug my friend, but she/he is still at work.

Yes, you can say Haluan halata ystävääni and it is grammatically correct. However, using Minä adds emphasis to who wants to do the action.

Haluan halata ystävääni ≈ “(I) want to hug my friend.”
– Neutral, no special emphasis on I.
Minä haluan halata ystävääni ≈ “I want to hug my friend.”
– Emphasises that it is me (not someone else).
Minäkin haluan halata ystävääni ≈ “I also want to hug my friend.”
– Emphasises that I too want this, in addition to someone already mentioned.

So the Minä here is mainly for contrast/emphasis, which is reinforced by -kin (“also”).

What exactly does the -kin in minäkin mean, and where else can it go in the sentence?

The ending -kin is a clitic particle that usually means “also, too, even”. It attaches to the word it is focusing.

In your sentence:

minäkin haluan… = “I too want…”, “I also want…”

You can move -kin to different words to change what is being emphasised:

Minäkin haluan halata ystävääni.
→ I too want to hug my friend. (Someone else wants it as well.)
Minä haluankin halata ystävääni.
→ “I do want to hug my friend (after all / actually).”
Here -kin on haluan can add a nuance of “contrary to what you might think” or “as it turns out”.
Minä haluan halata ystäväänikin.
→ “I want to hug my friend too (in addition to someone/something else I’m hugging).”

So -kin always attaches to the previous word, and the word it’s attached to is what is understood as “also / too / even”.

Why does Finnish say haluan halata (two similar verbs) instead of using just one verb for “want to hug”?

Finnish expresses “want to do something” with the verb haluta (“to want”) plus another verb in its basic infinitive form (the so‑called A‑infinitive):

haluan halata = “I want to hug”
haluat syödä = “you want to eat”
hän haluaa nukkua = “he/she wants to sleep”

So the pattern is:

[conjugated haluta] + [infinitive]

In your sentence:

haluan = “I want”
halata = “to hug” (infinitive, dictionary form)

This is the normal, everyday way to say “want to X” in Finnish; there is no special single-verb form that combines “want” and “hug”.

How is haluan formed from haluta, and what are the other common present-tense forms?

Haluta is a type 4 verb (ending in -ta / -tä). In the present tense, the -ta is dropped and personal endings are added:

infinitive: haluta = “to want”
stem for present: halua-

Present tense forms:

(minä) haluan – I want
(sinä) haluat – you (sg) want
(hän) haluaa – he/she wants
(me) haluamme – we want
(te) haluatte – you (pl) want
(he) haluavat – they want

You see the same stem halua- in all of them; only the personal ending changes.

Why is it ystävääni and not ystäväni after halata?

Ystävääni is in the partitive case, while ystäväni would be nominative/accusative. Finnish objects can appear in different cases depending on meaning and aspect.

With many verbs, including halata (“to hug”), there is a contrast:

Halasin ystävääni.
→ “I was hugging my friend / I hugged my friend (for some time).”
Partitive object (ystävääni) often suggests an ongoing, incomplete, or unbounded action.
Halasin ystäväni.
→ “I hugged my friend (once, as a complete whole event).”
Nominative/accusative object (ystäväni) can suggest a completed, whole action.

In your sentence:

Haluan halata ystävääni.

The hugging is not actually happening yet; it is a desired, not-yet-realised action. Using the partitive object here is natural and common, matching the idea of something you want to do, not something already completed.

(You can sometimes see Haluan halata ystäväni, but it sounds more like a very definite, whole event and is much less typical in this “I want to…” context.)

What exactly is inside the form ystävääni? It looks quite long.

Ystävääni is made of three pieces:

ystävä – the basic noun: “friend”
-ä (here lengthened to -ää) – partitive singular ending
→ ystävää = “(of) a friend / friend (as partitive object)”
-ni – 1st person singular possessive suffix (“my”)
→ ystävääni = “my friend” in the partitive

So:

ystävä = friend
ystävää = friend (partitive)
ystäväni = my friend (nominative)
ystävääni = my friend (partitive)

The double ää is just how the partitive of many -ä nouns looks; it’s not a separate extra meaning.

Could I also say minun ystävääni or minun ystäväni here? What is the difference compared with ystävääni?

Finnish shows possession in two main ways:

Possessive suffix on the noun:
- ystäväni = my friend
- ystävääni = my friend (partitive object)
Possessive pronoun in genitive
- noun:
- minun ystävä / minun ystäväni = my friend
- minun ystävää = my friend (partitive object)

In practice:

ystävääni (suffix only) is perfectly natural and standard in this sentence.
minun ystävää (pronoun only) is also possible, especially in spoken or less formal language.
minun ystävääni (both pronoun + suffix) is very common in speech but traditionally considered redundant in careful written language.

Meaning-wise, all of these refer to “my friend”. Using minun often adds a bit of emphasis on whose friend it is:

Haluan halata ystävääni. – I want to hug my friend. (neutral)
Haluan halata minun ystävääni. – I want to hug my friend (as opposed to someone else’s).
(This double marking is colloquial.)

For clean, textbook-like Finnish, in this sentence it’s best to stick with ystävääni as given.

What does vielä mean in hän on vielä töissä, and could it go somewhere else?

Here vielä means “still”:

hän on vielä töissä = “he/she is still at work”

Typical position is before the word or phrase it modifies:

Hän on vielä töissä. – He/she is still at work.
Hän on töissä vielä. – Also possible, more colloquial or with a slight afterthought feel; often used in speech.

So yes, you can move vielä, but the most neutral, standard order in this sentence is exactly what you have: hän on vielä töissä.

What is töissä, and why does it look like a plural form even though “work” is singular in English?

Töissä is a fixed idiomatic form meaning “at work”.

Morphologically, it comes from:

työ = work, job
plural stem: töi-
inessive plural ending: -ssä / -ssä

→ töissä = literally “in works / in jobs”

But as an expression:

olla töissä = “to be at work”
Hän on töissä. = “He/she is at work.”

So, even though it looks plural, you should just learn töissä as the standard way to say “at work” with olla (“to be”).

Does hän mean “he” or “she”? How do you know which one in this sentence?

Hän is a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. It can mean:

he
she

Finnish does not have separate pronouns for male and female. The context (or your knowledge of the situation) decides whether you translate it as “he” or “she” in English.

So in mutta hän on vielä töissä, hän could be either “he” or “she”. The Finnish sentence itself does not specify the gender.

(In everyday spoken Finnish, people often use se instead of hän for people, but in standard written language hän is used for humans.)