Learn Hardcore Finnish: Me tapaamme ystävän torilla. - We meet a friend at the market square.

Breakdown of Me tapaamme ystävän torilla.

Why do we say Me tapaamme if tapaamme already means “we meet”? Is me necessary?

The personal pronoun me (we) is not grammatically necessary here. The ending -mme on tapaamme already tells you that the subject is we.

Both are correct and mean the same thing in a neutral context.

So why use me at all?

With me: adds a bit of emphasis to we, like “we (as opposed to someone else) will meet the friend…”
Without me: a bit more neutral, and very typical in everyday Finnish.

In spoken and informal Finnish, dropping the pronoun is extremely common whenever the person is clear from the verb ending.

What exactly does tapaamme tell us? Which tense and person is it?

Tapaamme is:

So tapaamme = “we meet / we will meet”.

Finnish usually uses the present tense for future events too:

Me tapaamme ystävän torilla huomenna.
= We will meet the friend at the market (square) tomorrow.

There is no separate “will meet” form; context (like huomenna = tomorrow) shows it’s about the future.

The dictionary form is tavata. Why is it tapaamme and not tavaamme?