Opettaja näyttää, miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään istuen tuolilla.

The teacher shows how the breathing exercise is done while sitting on a chair.

Breakdown of Opettaja näyttää, miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään istuen tuolilla.

• tuoli: the chair
• -lla: on
• miten: how
• istua: to sit
• opettaja: the teacher
• tehdä: to do
• näyttää: to show
• hengitysharjoitus: the breathing exercise

Questions & Answers about Opettaja näyttää, miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään istuen tuolilla.

What is the function of miten in this sentence? Is it like that, or is it a question word like how?

Miten is a question word meaning how, and here it introduces an indirect question / content clause:

• Opettaja näyttää, miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään…
  → The teacher shows *how the breathing exercise is done…*

So miten is not like että (that). With että, you would say something like:

• Opettaja näyttää, että hengitysharjoitus tehdään istuen tuolilla.
  → The teacher shows *that the breathing exercise is done sitting on a chair.*

That would state a fact, not explain the method. With miten, the focus is explicitly on the way / method.

Why is there a comma before miten?

Finnish normally uses a comma to separate a main clause from a subordinate clause:

• Main clause: Opettaja näyttää (The teacher shows)
• Subordinate clause: miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään istuen tuolilla (how the breathing exercise is done sitting on a chair)

Subordinate clauses introduced by words like että, jotta, koska, kun, jos, miten, kuinka, etc. are usually preceded by a comma in writing.

Why is hengitysharjoitus in the basic form (nominative) and not in some other case?

In the clause miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään, the word hengitysharjoitus is the subject of tehdään, so it appears in the nominative singular:

• hengitysharjoitus tehdään
  → the breathing exercise is done

If you changed the case, you would change the function:

• hengitysharjoitusta tehdään (partitive) would focus on the action being ongoing or partial: a breathing exercise is being done / some breathing exercise is done (not a complete, whole exercise as such).

Here the idea is general “how the breathing exercise (as a whole, as a type) is done”, so nominative singular is the natural choice.

Why do we use tehdään (passive) instead of something like tehdä (to do)?

The structure miten … tehdään needs a finite verb, not an infinitive:

• miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään
  → literally how the breathing exercise is done
  → functionally very close to English how to do the breathing exercise

Using an infinitive like miten hengitysharjoitus tehdä would be ungrammatical in Finnish.

The passive form tehdään (present tense) expresses an impersonal subject, roughly:

• how (one) does the breathing exercise
• how you/people do the breathing exercise

So:

• Opettaja näyttää, miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään…
  = The teacher shows how (one) does / how you do the breathing exercise…

What exactly is istuen grammatically, and what does it add to the meaning?

Istuen comes from the verb istua (to sit). Grammatically, it is the second infinitive in the instructive case, often just called an adverbial infinitive.

Its job is to describe how or in what manner the action of the main verb is done:

• tehdään istuen
  → is done sitting / is done while sitting

So istuen modifies tehdään and tells us the position / manner in which the breathing exercise is done.

Very roughly, you can think:

• istuen ≈ sitting (as an adverbial: by/while sitting)

Who is actually sitting in istuen tuolilla – the teacher, or the person doing the exercise?

Grammatically, istuen is connected to the same (implicit) subject as tehdään in the subordinate clause:

• miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään istuen tuolilla
  → how the breathing exercise is done sitting on a chair

Here tehdään is in the passive, which has an implicit, general doer (one / you / people). So:

• The person doing the breathing exercise is understood to be the one who is sitting on a chair.

The teacher may also be sitting while showing it, but grammatically the construction describes the doer of the exercise, not specifically the teacher in the main clause.

Why is it tuolilla and not tuolissa in istuen tuolilla?

The difference is about Finnish local cases:

• tuolilla = on a chair (adessive: on, at, by)
• tuolissa = in a chair (inessive: inside)

Physically, you sit on a chair, not inside it, so tuolilla is the natural form:

• istuen tuolilla
  → sitting on a chair

Tuolissa would sound like you are somehow inside the chair (for example inside a big box-like chair), which is not the normal idea here.

Could we say istuen tuolilla hengitysharjoitus tehdään or move istuen tuolilla earlier in the clause?

Yes, Finnish word order is fairly flexible, so variations like these are possible:

• …miten hengitysharjoitus istuen tuolilla tehdään.
• …miten istuen tuolilla hengitysharjoitus tehdään.

They are grammatically correct, but the original:

• miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään istuen tuolilla

is the most neutral and natural-sounding. Moving istuen tuolilla earlier can sound a bit more formal, emphatic, or stylistically marked. For everyday use, stick with the original order.

Is there a difference between miten and kuinka here? Could I say kuinka hengitysharjoitus tehdään instead?

You can use either:

• miten hengitysharjoitus tehdään
• kuinka hengitysharjoitus tehdään

Both are correct and mean how the breathing exercise is done.

Nuances:

• Miten is often slightly more colloquial / common in everyday speech.
• Kuinka can sound a bit more formal or literary in some contexts, but in this kind of sentence they are effectively interchangeable.

Why not use istumalla instead of istuen? For example: …hengitysharjoitus tehdään istumalla tuolilla.

Istumalla is another adverbial infinitive (the third infinitive in -malla/-mällä), and:

• …hengitysharjoitus tehdään istumalla tuolilla.

is actually grammatically correct too. Both istuen and istumalla can express:

• by sitting / while sitting

However, in this specific type of neutral description of how something is usually done, istuen is very natural and slightly more compact. Istumalla can sometimes feel a bit more like “by means of sitting” or highlight the method as a tool. Here that nuance is not needed; istuen tuolilla is simple and idiomatic.

What is hengitysharjoitus made of, and how is it usually understood?

Hengitysharjoitus is a compound noun:

• hengitys = breathing
• harjoitus = exercise, practice

Together:

• hengitysharjoitus = breathing exercise

It refers to any exercise where the main focus is on controlling, deepening, or observing breathing (for example in yoga, relaxation techniques, voice training, etc.).