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What Finnish Doesn't Have

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Finnish has no grammatical gender (no he/she — just hän for everyone), no articles (no "a" or "the"), and no future tense — present tense + context covers it.
Pronominit

Personal Pronouns

FinnishEnglishNotes
minä / mäImä is very common in spoken Finnish
sinä / säyou (singular)sä is the spoken form
hänhe / she / theyNo gender distinction!
mewe
teyou (plural / formal)Also formal singular (like "vous" in French)
hetheyFormal; spoken Finnish often uses "ne"
Kieltolause

Making Sentences Negative

In Finnish, negation uses a special negative verb ei that changes based on person. The main verb goes into a special base form (the connective form).

Negative verb forms

minä en — I don't
sinä et — you don't
hän ei — he/she doesn't
me emme — we don't
te ette — you (pl) don't
he eivät — they don't
Puhun suomea → I speak Finnish
En puhu suomea → I don't speak Finnish
Verbityypit

Verb Types — Present Tense

Finnish verbs follow predictable patterns based on their infinitive ending. Here are the two most common types:

Type 1 — verbs ending in two vowels (puhua, syödä)

Remove the final -a/-ä to get the stem, then add personal endings.

puhua (to speak) → stem: puhu-
minä puhun I speak  |  sinä puhut you speak  |  hän puhuu he/she speaks

Type 2 — verbs ending in -da/-dä (syödä, juoda)

Remove -da/-dä, then add endings. The stem vowel is often doubled in 3rd person.

syödä (to eat) → stem: syö-
minä syön I eat  |  sinä syöt you eat  |  hän syö he/she eats
Sijamuodot

The Finnish Cases — An Overview

Finnish has 15 grammatical cases — word endings that replace what English expresses with prepositions (in, on, to, from…). Here are the 6 most important for beginners:

Nominative
— (no ending)
Subject of a sentence; dictionary form
talo = the house (as subject)
Genitive
-n
Possession ("of", "'s")
talon = of the house / the house's
Accusative / Partitive
-a / -ä / -ta / -tä
Object of a sentence (partial or some)
taloa = (some of the) house
Inessive
-ssa / -ssä
"In" — inside something
talossa = in the house
Elative
-sta / -stä
"From" / "out of" something
talosta = from the house
Illative
-an / -ään / -Vn
"Into" something
taloon = into the house
Allative
-lle
"Onto" / "to" (surface/person)
pöydälle = onto the table
Adessive
-lla / -llä
"On" / "at" (surface)
pöydällä = on the table
Ablative
-lta / -ltä
"From" (surface / person)
pöydältä = from the table
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Don't try to memorise all 15 cases at once. Start with -ssa/-ssä (in) and -lla/-llä (on/at). These two cover most everyday situations: Helsingissä (in Helsinki), töissä (at work).
Testaa tietosi

Quick Quiz — Grammar

12 questions to test what you just learned. Good luck!