Breakdown of Menemme tenniskentälle illalla pelaamaan tennistä.
Questions & Answers about Menemme tenniskentälle illalla pelaamaan tennistä.
The ending -mme is the 1st person plural personal ending, meaning “we”.
So menemme literally means “we go / we are going”.
In Finnish, the personal ending is usually enough, so the pronoun me (we) is often left out unless you want to emphasize it (e.g. Me menemme, we are going, not someone else).
Tenniskenttä means “tennis court” in the basic (nominative) form.
The ending -lle in tenniskentälle is the allative case, which often means “to / onto” a surface or place.
So:
- tenniskenttä = tennis court
- tenniskentälle = to the tennis court / onto the tennis court
You need the directional case because the verb mennä (to go) implies movement to a place.
Yes, tenniskenttä is a compound word:
- tennis = tennis
- kenttä = field, court
Together: tenniskenttä = tennis court.
When you decline a compound noun, only the last part takes the case ending:
- tenniskenttä → tenniskentälle (allative, “to the tennis court”)
- Not tennikselle kenttä or anything like that.
Ilta means “evening”.
Illalla is ilta in the adessive case (-lla), which in time expressions is used for “at/in the (part of the) day”.
So:
- ilta = evening
- illalla = in the evening / this evening (in a general sense)
This same pattern appears in:
- aamu → aamulla (in the morning)
- päivä → päivällä (in the daytime)
- yö → yöllä (at night)
Illalla (adessive) is the normal, idiomatic way to express “in the evening” as a time when something happens.
Iltaan is the illative form and literally means “into the evening”; it’s used in different kinds of expressions (e.g. jatkui iltaan asti – “continued until evening”).
For a simple time adverbial like here (“in the evening”), Finnish uses illalla, not iltaan.
Pelaamaan is the third infinitive in the illative case (often called the MA-infinitive, illative form).
It’s formed from pelata (to play) and here means roughly “to play” in the sense of purpose.
With verbs of movement such as mennä (to go), you typically use this form to express “go to do something”:
- mennä pelaamaan = to go (in order) to play
- mennä uimaan = to go (in order) to swim
- mennä ostamaan = to go (in order) to buy
So menemme … pelaamaan means “we are going … to play”, expressing the goal of going.
Pelaamme tennistä is its own full clause: “we play / we are playing tennis.”
In the original sentence:
- Menemme tenniskentälle illalla pelaamaan tennistä.
The main verb is menemme (“we go”), and pelaamaan tennistä describes the purpose of going: we go (somewhere) to play tennis.
If you said:
- Menemme tenniskentälle illalla ja pelaamme tennistä.
That would be more like: “We go to the tennis court in the evening and (then) we play tennis”, treating the two actions as more separate.
Using mennä + MA‑infinitive (mennä pelaamaan) is the standard way to say “go (in order) to do X” in Finnish.
Tennistä is the partitive form of tennis.
With the verb pelata (to play), the game is almost always in the partitive case, because the action is ongoing/indefinite rather than acting on a “whole countable object.”
Some typical patterns:
- pelata tennistä – to play tennis
- pelata jalkapalloa – to play football
- pelata shakkia – to play chess
So pelaamaan tennistä literally is “(to go) to play tennis (some)”, which is just how Finnish expresses playing games.
Yes, that’s possible and often natural in context.
For example:
- Menemme tenniskentälle illalla pelaamaan.
Because you’ve already mentioned tenniskenttä, it’s usually clear that you mean playing tennis. Including tennistä just makes it explicit what you’re going there to play, but it’s not strictly required.
Grammatically, menemme is present tense. Finnish does not have a separate future tense.
The present tense can refer to:
- now: Nyt menemme tenniskentälle – “We’re going to the tennis court now.”
- future (with a time word): Menemme tenniskentälle illalla – “We’re going / will go to the tennis court in the evening.”
The time phrase illalla tells you that the action is in the future, even though the verb form is present.
Yes, Finnish word order is quite flexible, and several versions are natural, for example:
- Menemme illalla tenniskentälle pelaamaan tennistä.
- Illalla menemme tenniskentälle pelaamaan tennistä.
- Illalla menemme pelaamaan tennistä tenniskentälle.
The first element of the sentence tends to be what you emphasize most:
- Illalla menemme… → emphasis on “in the evening (as opposed to some other time)”.
- Tenniskentälle menemme illalla… (less neutral) → emphasis on “to the tennis court (not somewhere else)”.
But all of these are grammatically correct.
You can use tänä iltana for “this evening”:
- Menemme tenniskentälle tänä iltana pelaamaan tennistä.
Some other natural word orders:
- Tänä iltana menemme tenniskentälle pelaamaan tennistä.
Here tänä iltana (this evening) is more specific than illalla (in the evening in general).
These are different cases / forms:
tenniskentälle
- Case: allative
- Meaning: to the tennis court / onto the tennis court (movement toward)
- Used with mennä, tulla, etc.
tenniskentällä
- Case: adessive
- Meaning: on/at the tennis court (location, no movement)
- Example: Olemme tenniskentällä. – “We are at the tennis court.”
tenniskentälleen
- Allative + 3rd person possessive suffix -en (his/her/their own)
- Meaning: to his/her/their own tennis court
- Example: He menivät tenniskentälleen. – “They went to their (own) tennis court.”
In the original sentence we want simple movement to a place, with no special possession, so tenniskentälle is the correct form.