The Finnish question word for "why" is miksi. As with most other question words, the rest of the sentence looks like a statement.
Suomi on tärkeä kieli.
Finnish is an important language.
Miksi suomi on tärkeä kieli?
Why is Finnish an important language?
Nations, nationalities, and their languages
Unlike in English, languages are not considered proper nouns in Finnish. Therefore, they start with a letter in the lower case. Most language names look identical to the name of the nation of their speakers, except for the first letter.
Pöllö, Suomi on maa, suomi on kieli ja hän on suomalainen.
Pöllö, Finland is a country, Finnish is a language, and s/he is a Finn.
wow. such easy
The word niin, "so", is a quantifier that appears before an adjective or an adverb.
Tämä lause on niin helppo.
This sentence is so easy.
However, since English insists on leaving articles lying around for speakers of Finnish to trip on, "such" is often the more idiomatic translation whenever the adjective is followed by a noun.
Englanti on niin vaikea kieli.
English is so difficult a language./English is such a difficult language.
Definitely or
The conjunction vai, "or", appears only in questions and is always exclusive, never inclusive. This means that you are expected to choose one thing as an answer to the question.
Onko se kieli, murre vai aksentti?
Is it a language, a dialect, or an accent?
Oh really?
As in English, the adverb todella, "really", likes to march before the verb. It should not be confused with the determiner todella, "really", which precedes an adjective and has a different function.
Ranska todella on kaunis kieli.
French really is a beautiful language.
(Mon dieu, French is beautiful. Not pretty, nor cute, nor nice. Beautiful.)
Ranska on todella kaunis kieli.
French is a really beautiful language.
(Oui, French is beautiful, and not just beautiful but so beautiful that saying that it is merely beautiful would be an understatement. Oh la la...)
Teacher, teacher!
Finnish children do not address teachers formally. No sirs here, no ma'am! The youngest children refer to their teachers by first name. As they grow older, nicknames and last names (without a title) become more common. Usually though, a teacher is quite simply a teacher, opettaja, or its abbreviation, ope.
Opettaja, miksi viro on tärkeä kieli?
Teacher, why is Estonian an important language?