Learn Hardcore Finnish: Kurssilla puhumme myös kielitieteestä ja siitä, millainen asenne auttaa oppimaan kieltä. - On the course we also talk about linguistics and about what kind of attitude helps to learn a language.

The adessive -lla/-llä often means:
- on something (pöydällä = on the table)
- at a place (asemalla = at the station)
- during / at an event or activity (kurssilla = on/during the course, tunnilla = in class)

So Kurssilla puhumme… literally is “On/at the course we talk…”, which in natural English becomes “On the course / In the course / During the course we (will) talk…”.

You would not say kurssissa here; the inessive -ssa/-ssä is more physical “inside” something (e.g. laatikossa = in the box). For events like a course, -lla is idiomatic.

Why is there no me in the sentence? Could it also be Me puhumme?

The verb puhumme already shows the subject:

stem: puhu- (to speak)
personal ending: -mme (we)

Finnish is a “pro‑drop” language: when the verb form clearly shows the subject, the pronoun is often omitted, especially in neutral statements.

Puhumme myös kielitieteestä… = We also talk about linguistics…
Me puhumme myös kielitieteestä… is also correct, but me adds a bit of emphasis on we (as opposed to someone else).

Why does kielitieteestä have the ending -stä? What is special about puhua?

Kielitieteestä = kielitiede (linguistics) + -stä (elative case, “from/out of”).

The verb puhua in the sense “to talk about something” normally takes its topic in the elative (‑sta/‑stä):

puhua politiikasta = to talk about politics
puhua Suomesta = to talk about Finland
puhua kielitieteestä = to talk about linguistics

So the structure is:

puhua + jostakin (elative) = to talk about something

This same pattern explains siitä later in the sentence: it’s also in the “from/about” case.

What does siitä, millainen asenne… do here? Why do we need siitä?

The sequence siitä, millainen asenne auttaa oppimaan kieltä means:

siitä = about that / about it (elative of se: “it/that”)
millainen asenne auttaa oppimaan kieltä = what kind of attitude helps to learn a language

Together: “about what kind of attitude helps to learn a language”.

In Finnish, after puhua (“talk about”), you often use:

puhua siitä, että… = talk about the fact that…
puhua siitä, mitä… = talk about what…
puhua siitä, millainen… = talk about what kind of…

The pronoun siitä links the subordinate clause (millainen asenne…) to puhumme and supplies the required elative case after puhua.

Without siitä, the sentence would feel ungrammatical or at least very odd:

✗ Puhumme, millainen asenne auttaa oppimaan kieltä. (unnatural)
✓ Puhumme siitä, millainen asenne auttaa oppimaan kieltä.

What is the role of millainen here, and how is it different from mikä or minkälainen?

Millainen is an interrogative/relative word meaning “what kind (of)”.

millainen asenne = what kind of attitude

In subordinate clauses like this, it works like English “what kind of”:

Puhumme siitä, millainen asenne auttaa…
= We talk about what kind of attitude helps…

Comparisons:

mikä = what / which (identifying something)
- Puhumme siitä, mikä asenne auttaa…
  = We talk about which attitude helps… (choosing from specific known options)
millainen / minkälainen: in modern standard Finnish they are practically the same; millainen is just a slightly shorter/commoner form.
You might see minkälainen especially when the case ending attaches:
- minkälaisesta asenteesta = about what kind of attitude

In your sentence, millainen asenne is the normal, basic form.

Why is it auttaa oppimaan and not just auttaa oppia?

Auttaa commonly takes the 3rd infinitive illative form of the following verb:

auttaa + (verb)-maan / -mään = help (someone) to do (verb)

Here:

oppimaan = 3rd infinitive illative of oppia (to learn)
- oppia → oppima- + an = oppimaan

So:

auttaa oppimaan kieltä ≈ helps (someone) to learn a language

You can sometimes see auttaa + basic infinitive (auttaa oppia), but in standard modern usage, auttaa + -maan/-mään is far more natural and is what you should learn as the default pattern:

auttaa ymmärtämään = help (to) understand
auttaa muistamaan = help (to) remember
auttaa oppimaan = help (to) learn

Why is kieltä in the partitive case instead of kielen?

Kieltä is the partitive singular of kieli (language).

General rules that matter here:

With verbs like oppia / oppimaan (to learn), the object is often partitive when:
- the process is ongoing or incomplete
- it refers to learning some amount or aspect of something

So:

oppimaan kieltä = to learn (some) language / a language (in general)
→ process, not necessarily “fully mastered”

If you said:

oppimaan kielen (total object, accusative/genitive form)
it would suggest learning a whole, specific language to completion, as in:
Hän oppi kielen hyvin. = He/She learned the language well (mastered it).

In your sentence, the idea is general (“helps in learning a language / learning languages”), so partitive kieltä is the natural choice.

Why is it just kieltä (language) and not a specific language like suomea?

Here kieltä is used in a generic sense:

oppimaan kieltä = to learn language, a language, languages (in general)

It’s about language learning as a skill, not one named language. You could make it specific:

…millainen asenne auttaa oppimaan suomea.
= what kind of attitude helps to learn Finnish.

But the given sentence is talking about language learning in general, so the bare kieltä (“language” as an abstract concept) is appropriate.

How does the word order Kurssilla puhumme myös… work? Could I say this another way?

Finnish word order is flexible, and elements at the beginning often set the topic or focus.

Kurssilla puhumme myös kielitieteestä…
Literally: “On the course we talk also about linguistics…”
→ The sentence starts by setting “On the course” as the context.

You could also say:

Puhumme kurssilla myös kielitieteestä ja siitä…
Puhumme myös kurssilla kielitieteestä ja siitä… (less typical)
Myös kurssilla puhumme kielitieteestä… (emphasising “also on the course”)

All are grammatically possible, but the given word order is very natural and neutral, with Kurssilla as the setting and myös kielitieteestä ja siitä… as the new information introduced in that setting.

What does myös modify here, and where else could it go?

Myös means “also / too”.

In Kurssilla puhumme myös kielitieteestä ja siitä, millainen asenne auttaa oppimaan kieltä, the most natural reading is:

We talk (on the course) also about:
- kielitieteestä (linguistics)
- ja siitä, millainen asenne auttaa… (and about what kind of attitude helps…)

So myös is attached to the things we talk about, not to kurssilla.

Alternative positions:

Puhumme myös kurssilla kielitieteestä…
→ could imply “we also talk about it on the course (in addition to somewhere else)”.
Puhumme kurssilla myös kielitieteestä…
→ almost the same as the original; myös highlights “kielitieteestä (and that second topic)” as additional topics.

Finnish allows some movement of myös, but the nuance changes slightly depending on which part of the sentence it seems to associate with (subject, place, object, etc.). Here, the default interpretation is “we also talk about linguistics and about what kind of attitude helps…”.