Breakdown of Voimmeko jutella tästä asiasta huomenna?
Questions & Answers about Voimmeko jutella tästä asiasta huomenna?
-ko/-kö is the yes/no question clitic in Finnish. It attaches to the focused word—very often the verb in neutral questions.
- Voimme = we can
- Voimmeko? = Can we? / Are we able to? (yes/no question)
Because voimme has back vowels (o, i, e), it takes -ko (not -kö). With front vowels you’d often see -kö (e.g., Tuleeko?).
The base verb is voida (to be able to / can).
Voimmeko breaks down as:
- voimme = 1st person plural, present tense (we can)
- -ko = yes/no question marker
So the core statement would be Voimme jutella... (We can talk/chat...), and Voimmeko... turns it into Can we... ?
jutella usually means to chat / to talk casually—a friendly, informal conversation. It’s less formal than keskustella (to discuss) and often less “goal-oriented.”
So this sentence feels like: Can we have a chat about this tomorrow?
If you wanted a more formal “discuss,” you might say Voimmeko keskustella tästä asiasta huomenna?
Finnish modal verbs like voida are followed by the 1st infinitive (dictionary form) of the main verb:
- voin mennä = I can go
- voimme jutella = we can chat
So jutella stays in the infinitive because voida carries the person/tense marking.
Because Finnish often expresses “about X” using the elative case (-sta/-stä, meaning “out of/from”), and here you have:
- tästä = elative of tämä (this) → about this
- asiasta = elative of asia (matter/issue/topic) → about the matter/issue
Together tästä asiasta literally leans toward about this matter/issue. It’s a common Finnish way to be specific: not just “about this,” but “about this issue.”
Both are in the elative case (-sta/-stä):
- tämä → tästä
- asia → asiasta
A quick recognition tip:
- -sta/-stä often corresponds to English from/out of and also commonly about in conversation contexts (puhua/jutella/keskustella jostakin = talk about something).
Yes—Finnish word order is fairly flexible, and changes mainly affect emphasis:
- Voimmeko jutella tästä asiasta huomenna? = neutral: topic first, time last
- Voimmeko jutella huomenna tästä asiasta? = slightly more emphasis on tomorrow (timing)
Both are natural. The question clitic -ko already signals it’s a question, so you can move huomenna around for focus.
Usually, no. In Finnish, -ko/-kö is a main grammatical way to form a yes/no question. Without it:
- Voimme jutella tästä asiasta huomenna. = We can talk about this tomorrow. (statement)
You can ask questions by intonation in casual speech, but the standard written/spoken way is to use -ko/-kö.
It’s already polite and normal. To soften it further, Finnish often adds a small phrase like:
- Voimmeko jutella tästä asiasta huomenna, jos sopii? = ...if that works (for you)?
- Voitaisiinko jutella tästä asiasta huomenna? = Could we talk about this tomorrow? (more tentative; conditional style)
The conditional-like voitaisiinko often feels extra polite or careful.
A few common learner points:
- voi-mme-ko: keep the double mm longer (Finnish consonant length matters).
- jutella: stress is on the first syllable: JU-te-lla.
- tästä: front vowels ä; and st is clean, not “sd.”
- huomenna: HUO-men-na; again the double nn is held a bit longer.
Finnish stress is almost always on the first syllable of each word.