Breakdown of Jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona, perheeni on joululomalla, emmekä mene kouluun emmekä töihin.
Questions & Answers about Jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona, perheeni on joululomalla, emmekä mene kouluun emmekä töihin.
Jouluna is the essive case of joulu (Christmas). The essive ending is -na / -nä.
In time expressions, the essive often means “at / on (during)” a certain time:
- jouluna = at Christmas
- kesällä (adessive) and kesänä (essive) both can be used, but jouluna, syntymäpäivänä, maanantaina etc. are very common for “on X (day/occasion)”.
So Jouluna, ... literally: At Christmas, ...
You rarely use plain joulu alone to mean “at Christmas”; you normally put it in a case like jouluna, joulunaikaan, etc.
- joulu = Christmas (the whole holiday)
- jouluaatto = Christmas Eve (literally “Christmas Eve/Christmas’s eve”)
Jouluaattona is jouluaatto in the essive case:
- jouluaatto → jouluaattona = on Christmas Eve
So the beginning of the sentence says:
- Jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona, ...
= At Christmas, especially on Christmas Eve, ...
Both jouluna and jouluaattona are temporal essive forms (“on / at [that time]”).
Varsinkin means “especially, particularly”.
In the sentence:
- Jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona, ...
varsinkin emphasizes jouluaattona, so it means at Christmas, *especially on Christmas Eve*.
Position:
- Very often varsinkin appears right before the thing it emphasizes:
- varsinkin jouluaattona
- varsinkin lapset (especially the children)
Moving it far away from what it modifies usually sounds odd or unclear. Here the commas just set off the phrase as a kind of side remark: “At Christmas – especially on Christmas Eve – my family is on Christmas vacation …”
Perheeni is perhe (family) + the possessive suffix -ni (my).
- perhe = family
- perheeni = my family
Finnish has two ways to show possession:
Possessive pronoun only (colloquial, common in speech and informal writing)
- minun perhe = my family
Possessive suffix (standard, neutral, especially in writing)
- perheeni = my family
Both together (more emphatic, or sometimes slightly formal/old-fashioned in everyday style)
- minun perheeni = my family (and not someone else’s)
In standard written Finnish, perheeni alone is fully normal and often preferred.
In Finnish, perhe is a singular noun, and verb agreement is purely grammatical, not semantic.
- perheeni on = my family is
This is actually just like English:
- English: My family *is on vacation.* (not “are” in standard American English; British English varies)
- Finnish: Perheeni on joululomalla.
Even though the family has multiple members, grammatically perheeni is one unit, so you use on.
Joululomalla is:
- joulu = Christmas
- loma = holiday, vacation
- joululoma = Christmas vacation
- joululomalla = on (Christmas) vacation
The ending -lla / -llä is the adessive case, often used to express:
- location: on / at / by something
- certain “states” or situations
With olla lomalla (“to be on vacation”), the pattern is:
- olla lomalla = to be on vacation
- olla joululomalla = to be on Christmas vacation
So perheeni on joululomalla = my family is on Christmas vacation.
Both are forms of the negative verb for we (me):
- emme = we do not
- emmekä = and we do not / nor do we
-kä / -kään is a clitic that adds the idea of “and also not / neither / either” and connects to something previous.
In this sentence:
- emme mene kouluun = we do not go to school
- emmekä töihin = and we do not (go) to work either
So emmekä links a second negative part to the first one, like:
- we don’t go to school, and we don’t go to work either
- or: we don’t go to school, *nor to work.*
The verb mene is dropped in the second part because it’s understood (we don’t go to work).
In Finnish, the verb ending already shows the person:
- emme = we do not (the -mme part is “we”)
Because of that, subject pronouns are often omitted when they’re not needed for emphasis or clarity.
- emme mene kouluun = we don’t go to school
- me emme mene kouluun = we don’t go to school (but with emphasis on “we”)
So in the sentence:
- ... perheeni on joululomalla, emmekä mene kouluun emmekä töihin.
the me is already contained in emme / emmekä, and leaving out me sounds perfectly natural.
Both kouluun and töihin are directions: “to school” and “to work”.
koulu = school
- kouluun (illative singular) = to school
- koulussa (inessive singular) = at school / in school
työ = work, job
- töihin (illative plural) = to work (to one’s job)
- töissä (inessive plural) = at work
Set expressions:
- mennä kouluun = to go to school
olla koulussa = to be at school
- mennä töihin = to go to work
- olla töissä = to be at work
So the sentence uses the illative (kouluun, töihin) because it describes going to those places. Töihin / töissä are historically plural forms, but in modern Finnish they’re just the standard way to say “to work / at work”.
You can say:
- emme mene kouluun tai töihin
but there’s a nuance difference:
- emme mene kouluun tai töihin
- literally “we don’t go to school or work”
- grammatically fine, usually interpreted as neither of those
- emme mene kouluun emmekä töihin
- explicitly “we don’t go to school, and we don’t go to work either”
- feels more parallel and clear
- fits nicely with negative + -kä pattern (en / et / ei / emme / ette / eivät
- -kä/-kään)
The sentence chosen (emme … emmekä …) strongly highlights both negatives as separate but parallel: we don’t go to school, and we don’t go to work either.
Finnish word order is fairly flexible, especially for adverbials (time, place, manner). You can say:
- Perheeni on joululomalla jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona.
Both:
- Jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona, perheeni on joululomalla ...
- Perheeni on joululomalla jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona ...
are grammatically correct.
Differences are mostly about emphasis and style:
- Starting with Jouluna puts time first, like English “At Christmas, …”
- Starting with Perheeni puts “my family” first, more like “My family is on Christmas vacation at Christmas, especially on Christmas Eve …”
Finnish often puts known or background information earlier and new or emphasized information later, but both orders are natural here.
Commas around “varsinkin jouluaattona”
- Jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona, ...
The phrase varsinkin jouluaattona is like a parenthetical comment:
At Christmas, *especially on Christmas Eve, my family is on holiday…*
In Finnish, such inserted clarifications are usually separated by commas, just like in English.
- Jouluna, varsinkin jouluaattona, ...
Comma before “emmekä”
- ..., perheeni on joululomalla, emmekä mene kouluun emmekä töihin.
Here emmekä mene kouluun ... starts a new clause, joined with and (not). In Finnish, you normally put a comma before a new independent clause introduced by a conjunction such as ja, mutta, tai, sekä, vaan, eikä, emmekä, etc.
- ..., perheeni on joululomalla, emmekä mene kouluun emmekä töihin.
So the commas are following regular Finnish punctuation rules for parenthetical phrases and coordinated clauses.