Learn Hardcore Finnish: Minä luen uutiskirjeen illalla keittiössä. - I read the newsletter in the evening in the kitchen.

Finnish verb forms already show the person, so the subject pronoun is usually left out in neutral sentences.
Using Minä adds emphasis, something like:

Minä luen uutiskirjeen… = I read the newsletter (not someone else).

So the basic meaning is the same, but Minä makes the subject more contrastive or emphatic.

Why is the verb luen and how is it formed from lukea (“to read”)?

The infinitive is lukea (“to read”).
For the 1st person singular (“I read”), Finnish does this:

Take the stem: luke-
Add the personal ending -n for “I”.
Apply consonant gradation: k disappears in this pattern.

So:

luke- + n → luen

This is a regular pattern for type 1 verbs like lukea, hakea, pukea: the k in the stem often disappears in personal forms (luke- → lue-).

Does luen mean “I read” or “I will read”?

It can mean both. Finnish does not have a separate future tense.

Minä luen uutiskirjeen illalla keittiössä. can be:

I read the newsletter in the evening in the kitchen. (habitual / general)
I’ll read the newsletter this evening in the kitchen. (future, from context)

The time expression illalla (“in the evening”) usually makes it sound like a future plan in English.

Why is it uutiskirjeen and not just uutiskirje?

uutiskirjeen is in the genitive form, used here as a total object.

Finnish objects have several possible forms. With a completed action affecting the whole object, you typically get:

Luen uutiskirjeen. = I read the whole newsletter (or: I will read it, from start to finish).

If you used nominative uutiskirje, it would normally appear in a different kind of structure (e.g. with certain verb forms) and not in this simple present tense sentence. So here, uutiskirjeen is the natural “whole object” form.

What is the difference between luen uutiskirjeen and luen uutiskirjettä?

The difference is aspect: complete vs. incomplete / partial.

luen uutiskirjeen
– object in “genitive/accusative” form
– I read the whole newsletter / I will finish it.
luen uutiskirjettä
– object in partitive
– I am (in the process of) reading the newsletter, but not necessarily finishing it.
– Often used for ongoing actions or when you don’t talk about a completed whole.

So uutiskirjeen implies a finished, bounded event; uutiskirjettä focuses on the activity itself.

What exactly does the ending -en in uutiskirjeen mean?

The -en here is the marker of the genitive singular case.

Basic form (nominative): uutiskirje (newsletter)
Genitive singular: uutiskirjeen

For words ending in -e, the genitive is formed by adding -en:

huone → huoneen (room)
perhe → perheen (family)
kirje → kirjeen (letter)
uutiskirje → uutiskirjeen (newsletter)

In this sentence, the genitive uutiskirjeen functions as the total object of luen.

Why is uutiskirje written as one word and not as two words?

uutiskirje is a compound noun:

uutis- (news-)
kirje (letter)

Finnish almost always writes noun + noun compounds as one word:

sanomalehti (newspaper; word + leaf)
oppikirja (textbook; study + book)
puhelinlasku (phone bill; telephone + bill)

So uutiskirje literally is a “news letter” → “newsletter”, one word in Finnish.

Why is it illalla and not just ilta?

ilta is the basic noun “evening”.
To say “in the evening / in the evenings / this evening” in a general time sense, Finnish uses the adessive case:

ilta → illalla

So illalla means “in the evening” (at that time of day), not just the abstract word “evening”.
Bare ilta would be used e.g. as a subject or object:

Ilta on lämmin. – The evening is warm.
Rakastan iltaa. – I love the evening.

But as a time adverbial (“when?”), illalla is the normal form.

What does the ending -lla in illalla mean? Is it the same -lla as in “on the table”?

Yes, it is the same adessive case ending -lla/-llä.

The adessive is used mainly for:

Location on/at something:
- pöydällä – on the table
- asemalla – at the station
Certain time expressions, especially parts of the day and some days:
- aamulla – in the morning
- päivällä – in the daytime
- illalla – in the evening
- yöllä – at night

So illalla literally is “on/at evening”, functionally “in the evening”.

Why does ilta become illalla? Where did the t go and why is there a double l?

This is consonant gradation, a common sound change in Finnish word forms.

The stem of ilta has a strong grade lt and a weak grade ll.
When you add the adessive ending -lla, the lt changes to ll:

ilta → stem illa- → illalla

So:

ilta (nominative) – strong grade
illan (genitive) – weak grade
illalla (adessive) – weak grade

This is just a regular alternation pattern and must be memorised with each word class, but lt → ll is very common.

Why is it keittiössä and what does -ssä mean?

keittiössä is keittiö (kitchen) + the inessive case ending -ssa/-ssä.

The inessive means “in, inside”:

talossa – in the house
autossa – in the car
kaupassa – in the store
keittiössä – in the kitchen

The choice between -ssa and -ssä depends on vowel harmony:

Back vowels (a, o, u) → -ssa (e.g. talo → talossa)
Front vowels (ä, ö, y) → -ssä (e.g. keittiö → keittiössä)

Since keittiö has front vowel ö, the correct form is keittiössä.

Could I use a preposition like “in” (e.g. in keittiö) instead of the case ending?

No. Finnish does not use a separate preposition like “in” here.

The idea of “in” is expressed by the case ending itself:

English: in the kitchen
Finnish: keittiö-ssä (kitchen-INESSIVE)

Finnish does have some adpositions (like ennen “before”, ilman “without”), but basic location and many time expressions are handled by case endings, not by prepositions.

Is the word order fixed? Could I say Illalla minä luen uutiskirjeen keittiössä or Keittiössä luen uutiskirjeen illalla?

Word order in Finnish is fairly flexible. All of these are grammatically possible:

Minä luen uutiskirjeen illalla keittiössä. (neutral)
Luen uutiskirjeen illalla keittiössä. (neutral, no pronoun)
Illalla luen uutiskirjeen keittiössä. (emphasis on when)
Keittiössä luen uutiskirjeen illalla. (emphasis on where)

Usually, new or important information comes earlier in the sentence.
The basic “neutral” order for a simple sentence like this is:

[subject] – [verb] – [object] – [time] – [place]

But you can move the time or place expressions to the front to highlight them.

Why are there no words like “a” or “the” in this sentence?

Finnish has no articles (no equivalents of a, an, the).

Definiteness and specificity are understood from:

context: previous mention, situation
word choice: tämä uutiskirje (this newsletter), se uutiskirje (that/the newsletter)
sometimes word order and emphasis

So uutiskirjeen can mean either:

the newsletter (a specific one known from context), or
a newsletter (some newsletter), depending on the situation.

The sentence doesn’t mark this grammatically; the listener infers it from context.

How would I say “I read my newsletter in the kitchen in the evening”?

You add a possessive suffix for “my”:

uutiskirje – newsletter
uutiskirjeeni – my newsletter

The object in this sentence needs the total-object form (genitive/accusative), so the possessive form becomes:

luen uutiskirjeeni – I read my newsletter (as a whole)

For “in my kitchen”, you also use a possessive suffix on the case form:

keittiö – kitchen
keittiössä – in the kitchen
keittiössäni – in my kitchen

Full sentence:

Luen uutiskirjeeni illalla keittiössäni. – I read my newsletter in my kitchen in the evening.