Questions & Answers about Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna.
Word-by-word:
- Tehtävä – literally task / exercise / assignment.
- It comes from the verb tehdä (to do, to make) + the suffix -tävä, which originally forms something like “something that is to be done”.
- jatkuu – continues / is continuing / will continue.
- It is the 3rd person singular present of the intransitive verb jatkua (to continue, to go on).
- huomenna – tomorrow.
- Grammatically, it’s an adverb (historically an essive form of an old noun huomen, but you can just learn it as the basic adverb “tomorrow”).
So the structure is simply: task – continues – tomorrow.
Finnish usually uses the present tense to talk about:
- Actual present:
- Tehtävä jatkuu nyt. – The task is continuing now.
- Scheduled or certain future:
- Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna. – The task will continue tomorrow.
There is no separate grammatical future tense in Finnish. Context words like huomenna (tomorrow) or ensi viikolla (next week) mark the time reference.
So jatkuu covers both “continues” and “will continue”, depending on context.
Finnish has no articles (no “a / an / the”). Definiteness is usually clear from:
- Context:
- If speaker and listener already know which task is meant (e.g. the homework you started today), tehtävä is understood as “the task”.
- Extra words, if needed:
- eräs tehtävä – a certain task
- tämä tehtävä – this task
- se tehtävä – that / the task (we just talked about)
So in normal conversation, Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna is very naturally understood as “The task will continue tomorrow” if a specific known task is being discussed.
Tehtävä is a fairly general word. Common meanings:
- Task / job to be done:
- Minulla on yksi tehtävä kotona. – I have one task at home.
- Exercise (in a textbook, exam, worksheet):
- Tee seuraava tehtävä. – Do the next exercise.
- Assignment / mission / duty (depending on context):
- Opettajan tehtävä on opettaa. – A teacher’s task/duty is to teach.
In the sentence Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna, it could be naturally understood as:
- a school exercise / class assignment, or
- some specific task you’re working on at work or elsewhere.
Context decides the most natural English word.
You’re right: -tava / -tävä usually forms the passive present participle of verbs:
- tehdä → tehtävä – that which is to be done
- ratkaista → ratkaistava – that which is to be solved
From these participles, many nouns are formed and become ordinary vocabulary items. Tehtävä has become a very common noun meaning task / exercise / assignment.
In Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna, tehtävä is clearly a noun and the subject of the sentence, not a verb form.
Jatkuu is:
- the 3rd person singular present form of the verb jatkua
- active, not passive
- intransitive (it doesn’t take a direct object)
So:
- jatkaa = to continue something (transitive)
- Jatkan tehtävää huomenna. – I will continue the task tomorrow.
- jatkua = to continue / to go on (intransitive)
- Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna. – The task will continue tomorrow.
The Finnish impersonal passive would look different, e.g. jatketaan (is/are continued).
They come from two related but distinct verbs:
jatkaa – to continue something (transitive)
- Needs an object:
- Jatkan tehtävää huomenna. – I’ll continue the task tomorrow.
- Voitko jatkaa esitystäsi? – Can you continue your presentation?
- Needs an object:
jatkua – to continue, go on (intransitive)
- No direct object; the thing that continues is the subject:
- Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna. – The task continues tomorrow.
- Sade jatkuu koko päivän. – The rain will continue all day.
- No direct object; the thing that continues is the subject:
In your sentence, you want to say “The task continues”, so you need jatkua → jatkuu, not jatkaa.
Synchronically (the way learners are typically taught), huomenna is just learned as an adverb meaning tomorrow.
Historically:
- It comes from the old noun huomen (morning, the next day)
- huomenna is its essive singular form (as/in the morning → tomorrow)
But for practical learning:
- treat huomenna as an indivisible adverb: “tomorrow”
- you don’t need to decline it like a normal noun in everyday grammar practice
Related forms:
- huomen – archaic / poetic, rarely seen on its own
- huominen – tomorrow’s / of tomorrow / the next day as an adjective or noun
- huominen päivä – tomorrow (the day of tomorrow)
In Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna, huomenna is simply “tomorrow”.
Yes, you can change the word order. Both are grammatically correct:
- Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna.
- Huomenna tehtävä jatkuu.
The basic meaning is the same, but the focus changes slightly:
- Tehtävä jatkuu huomenna.
- Neutral, default: the task is the starting point.
- Huomenna tehtävä jatkuu.
- More emphasis on “tomorrow”. Often sounds like you’re contrasting with today or some other time:
- Tomorrow the task will continue (not today).
- More emphasis on “tomorrow”. Often sounds like you’re contrasting with today or some other time:
Finnish allows fairly flexible word order, and emphasis is usually what changes.
You make both the subject and the verb plural:
- Tehtävät jatkuvat huomenna.
Breakdown:
- Tehtävä → Tehtävät (nominative plural) – the tasks
- jatkuu → jatkuvat (3rd person plural) – continue
- huomenna – tomorrow
So: Tehtävät jatkuvat huomenna. – The tasks continue tomorrow.
Negation in Finnish uses a separate negative verb (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät) and a special short form of the main verb.
For 3rd person singular:
- Negative verb: ei
- Main verb jatkua becomes jätku-, but in the connegative form it appears as jatku (no personal ending)
So:
- Tehtävä ei jatku huomenna. – The task will not continue tomorrow.
Structure:
- Tehtävä – subject
- ei – negative verb (3rd person singular)
- jatku – connegative form of jatkua
- huomenna – tomorrow
You can add a demonstrative pronoun:
- Tämä tehtävä jatkuu huomenna. – This task continues tomorrow.
Components:
- Tämä – this
- tehtävä – task
- jatkuu – continues / will continue
- huomenna – tomorrow
If you wanted “That task continues tomorrow”, you’d say:
- Se tehtävä jatkuu huomenna. – literally That task continues tomorrow, often used like “the task (we both know about) continues tomorrow”.