Learn Hardcore Finnish: Jos budjetti sallii, mennään ensi juhannuksena taas kesämökille ja jätetään kaupunki taakse viikonlopun ajaksi. - If the budget allows, let’s go again to the summer cottage next Midsummer and leave the city behind for the weekend.

jos budjetti sallii
- Verb: present indicative.
- Meaning: if the budget allows in a fairly realistic, neutral way.
- The speaker sees it as a normal, concrete condition (we’ll see what the budget is, and if it allows it, we’ll go).
jos budjetti sallisi
- Verb: conditional.
- Meaning: more hypothetical: if the budget were to allow / if only the budget allowed.
- Often sounds more doubtful, wishful, or polite.

In everyday speech, especially about future plans that seem realistic, Finns very often use the present indicative in jos-clauses:

Jos sää on hyvä, grillataan. – If the weather is good, we’ll grill.
Jos ehdit, soita. – If you have time, call.

So jos budjetti sallii fits that pattern: an ordinary condition about the real future.

Why is there a comma after Jos budjetti sallii? In English we don’t always put a comma before “if”.

Finnish comma rules are stricter than English ones.

Jos budjetti sallii is a subordinate clause (aloitussana jos).
mennään … ja jätetään … is the main clause.

Rule: when a subordinate clause comes before the main clause, Finnish normally requires a comma between them:

Jos sataa, jäädään kotiin.
Kun tulen kotiin, syön.
Vaikka olen väsynyt, jatkan.

If the order is reversed (main clause first), you still normally keep the comma:

Jatkan, vaikka olen väsynyt.

So the comma in Jos budjetti sallii, mennään… is just standard Finnish punctuation.

Why are mennään and jätetään used instead of menemme and jätämme?

Mennään and jätetään are passive forms in grammar terms, but in everyday Finnish they are very commonly used with the meaning “we …” (inclusive “let’s”).

mennään ≈ let’s go / we’ll go
jätetään ≈ let’s leave / we’ll leave

Compare:

Mennään kotiin. – Let’s go home.
Menemme kotiin. – We are going home. (more formal, written)

The sentence:

mennään ensi juhannuksena taas kesämökille ja jätetään kaupunki taakse…

is very natural spoken-style Finnish. In more formal style you could say:

Menemme ensi juhannuksena taas kesämökille ja jätämme kaupungin taakse viikonlopun ajaksi.

Both are correct, but the passive forms mennään / jätetään feel more casual and conversational.

What exactly does ensi mean in ensi juhannuksena? How is it different from seuraavana juhannuksena or tulevana juhannuksena?

Ensi means “next (coming)” in relation to now, and is very common in time expressions:

ensi viikolla – next week
ensi vuonna – next year
ensi kesänä – next summer

So:

ensi juhannuksena = next Midsummer (the coming one).

Other options:

seuraavana juhannuksena – the next Midsummer in some sequence already mentioned.
- E.g. Ensimmäisenä juhannuksena olimme kotona, seuraavana juhannuksena menimme mökille.
tulevana juhannuksena – this coming Midsummer; can sound slightly more formal or emphatic than ensi juhannuksena, but often interchangeable.

In isolation, if you just mean “next Midsummer (from now)”, ensi juhannuksena is the most natural.

Why is it juhannuksena (with -na) in ensi juhannuksena? When do you use this case for time expressions?

The ending -na/-nä is the essive case. One of its uses is to express “at (a point in time)”, especially for named days, holidays, and parts of the day:

juhannuksena – at Midsummer
pääsiäisenä – at Easter
joukuna – at Christmas
maanantaina – on Monday
iltana – in the evening

So:

ensi juhannuksena = at next Midsummer / on next Midsummer.

Compare:

Juhannuksena olemme mökillä. – At Midsummer we’re at the cottage.
Juhannuksena sataa usein. – It often rains at Midsummer.

So whenever you’re talking about being/doing something at a specific holiday or day, the essive (-na) is very common.

What nuance does taas add in mennään ensi juhannuksena taas kesämökille? How is it different from uudestaan?

Both taas and uudestaan can translate to “again”, but they behave slightly differently.

taas
- Very frequent, neutral “again”.
- Also often implies “back to the usual state / as before”.
- In your sentence: mennään … taas kesämökille suggests that going to the summer cottage for Midsummer is a familiar or repeated tradition.
uudestaan
- More literally “once more / anew”.
- Often highlights repetition of a specific act.
- Slightly stronger feeling of “one more time”.

Here:

mennään ensi juhannuksena taas kesämökille = we’re returning to our usual habit / going there again like before.
mennään ensi juhannuksena uudestaan kesämökille would also be correct, but focuses more on “once more to that same cottage”, without the same “back to the usual pattern” nuance.

In everyday speech taas is extremely common for “again” in this kind of context.

Why is it kesämökille and not kesämökkiin? What’s the difference between -lle and -in here?

Both are possible with mennä (to go), but they emphasize slightly different things.

kesämökille – allative (-lle)
- Literally “to the summer cottage (area / place / property)”.
- Often used when you mean the cottage as a destination/place, including yard, surroundings, etc.
- Very common when talking about going to one’s cottage in general.
kesämökkiin – illative (-in)
- Literally “into the summer cottage (building, interior)”.
- Emphasizes entering inside the building.

In practice:

Mennään viikonlopuksi mökille. – Let’s go to the cottage for the weekend. (natural, general destination)
Mennään sisälle mökkiin. – Let’s go inside the cottage.

In your sentence, the point is “go to the cottage (for Midsummer)”, not “go into the building”, so kesämökille (allative) is the most natural choice.

In jätetään kaupunki taakse, why is kaupunki in the nominative and not kaupungin? I thought total objects are genitive.

Good observation. The key is that the verb is in the passive form (jätetään).

General rule:

With normal personal forms (e.g. jätän, jätämme), a total object is usually genitive:
- Jätämme kaupungin taakse. – We’ll leave the city behind.
With the passive (e.g. jätetään), the object is in the nominative, even if it’s a total object:
- Kaupunki jätetään taakse. – The city is left behind.
- Jätetään kaupunki taakse. – Let’s leave the city behind.

So here:

jätetään is passive (used as “we”),
therefore kaupunki appears in nominative, not kaupungin, even though we are clearly leaving “the whole city” behind.

What exactly does taakse mean in jätetään kaupunki taakse, and how is this expression built?

Taakse literally means “to the back / behind (as direction)”.

It comes from:

taka – back (noun stem)
taakse – into the position behind (illative form)

So jättää X taakse is a set expression meaning:

literally: to leave X behind (to the back)
idiomatically: to leave X behind (figuratively)

Examples:

Jätetään ongelmat taakse. – Let’s leave the problems behind.
Hän jätti menneisyyden taakse. – He/She left the past behind.

In your sentence:

jätetään kaupunki taakse viikonlopun ajaksi
= let’s leave the city behind for the weekend,
both in the literal sense (we physically leave) and possibly also in an emotional/mental sense (forget city life for a while).

What does viikonlopun ajaksi literally mean, and how is this phrase formed? Why not just viikonloppuna or viikonlopuksi?

Viikonlopun ajaksi is a common way to say “for the duration of the weekend”.

Breakdown:

viikonlopun – genitive of viikonloppu (weekend).
aika – time.
ajaksi – translative form of aika (“for a time, into the state of being a time-period”).

Together:

viikonlopun ajaksi
= literally “for the time of the weekend”
= for the weekend / for the duration of the weekend.

Compare with other options:

viikonloppuna (essive) – on/at the weekend (when, not how long).
- Olemme mökillä viikonloppuna. – We are at the cottage at the weekend.
viikonlopuksi (translative) – for the weekend (as an endpoint/destination in time).
- Mennään mökille viikonlopuksi. – Let’s go to the cottage for the weekend.

Your sentence:

… ja jätetään kaupunki taakse viikonlopun ajaksi.

emphasizes the entire duration of the weekend: we leave the city behind for that whole period, not just “at some point that weekend”.

Could I move taas in the sentence? For example: mennään taas ensi juhannuksena kesämökille – is that different?

You can move taas and it will still be correct, but the nuance shifts slightly in focus.

Original:

mennään ensi juhannuksena taas kesämökille
- Focus slightly on “at next Midsummer we’ll again go to the summer cottage”.

Alternative:

mennään taas ensi juhannuksena kesämökille
- Focus a bit more on “again, next Midsummer we’ll go to the summer cottage” – “again” is felt more as modifying the whole plan.

In practice, both word orders are very natural in speech and the difference is small. Taas is relatively flexible in position:

Taas mennään ensi juhannuksena kesämökille.
Ensi juhannuksena mennään taas kesämökille.

All of these are acceptable; none changes the basic meaning: we’re going to the cottage again next Midsummer.

Is this sentence more spoken or written Finnish? How would I say it more formally?

The sentence is natural, slightly spoken-style Finnish, mainly because of the passive forms mennään and jätetään used as “we”.

A more formal / clearly written-style version would use 1st person plural forms:

Jos budjetti sallii, menemme ensi juhannuksena taas kesämökille ja jätämme kaupungin taakse viikonlopun ajaksi.

Differences:

mennään → menemme
jätetään → jätämme

Everything else is fine in both spoken and written Finnish. The spoken-style sentence would be perfectly normal in conversation, in texts imitating speech (messages, chats), or informal writing.