Mene kouluun, ole ystävällinen.

English Translation

Please go to school.

Is ‘ole ystävällinen’ (literally ‘be friendly’) an ideomatic expression meaning something like ‘please’ or ‘be nice’?

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I (non-native speaker at about CEFR level B1/B2 proficiency) have never heard this, just “ole kiltti” or “ole hyvä”. Either of them can be put after the command, or before it with ja (Ole hyvä/kiltti ja mene kouluun).

Ystävällinen/ystävällisesti can be used for “kind(ly)” in statements like Kiitos ystävällisestä avustasi (Thank you for kindly helping me), but as far as I know you can’t use it in commands like Kindly go to school.

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I need to check this with one of my Finnish teachers.

Judging from other sentences here, I think in many cases you can simply omit the equivalent of please in Finnish, without being considered rude, but if you want to be polite you can use the conditional, or append “, pyydän” or “, kiitos”.

I asked one of my Finnish teachers on Italki about ‘ole ystävällinen’. She says it is a bit strange but okay, and the meaning is the same as the more common ‘ole kiltti’.

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