Finnish grammar

This article deals with the grammar of the Finnish language (the article Finnish language discusses the
language in general and contains a quick overview of the grammar). For the ways in which the spoken language
differs from the written language, see Colloquial Finnish. Unlike the languages spoken in neighbouring
countries, such as Swedish and Norwegian, which are North Germanic languages, Finnish is a Uralic language,
and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages.

Contents
1 Pronouns
1.1 Personal pronouns
1.2 Demonstrative pronouns
1.3 Interrogative pronouns
1.4 Relative pronouns
1.5 Reciprocal pronouns
1.6 Reflexive pronouns
1.7 Indefinite pronouns
2 Noun forms
2.1 Cases
2.2 Plurals
2.2.1 Nominative plural
2.2.2 Following numerals
2.2.3 Inflected plural
2.2.4 Inflection of pronouns
2.3 Noun/adjective stem types
2.3.1 Vowel stems
2.3.2 Consonant stems
2.3.2.1 Nouns ending in -s
2.3.2.2 -nen nouns
2.3.2.3 -e nouns
3 Adjectives
3.1 Comparative formation
3.2 Superlative formation
3.2.1 Irregular forms
4 Postpositions and prepositions
4.1 Postpositions
4.2 Prepositions
5 Verb forms
5.1 Tense-aspect forms
5.2 Voices
5.2.1 Passive voice
5.2.1.1 As first-person plural
5.2.2 Zero person
5.3 Moods
5.3.1 Indicative
5.3.2 Conditional
5.3.3 Imperative
5.3.3.1 Active, 2nd-person imperatives
5.3.3.2 Passive imperatives
5.3.3.3 3rd-person imperatives
5.3.3.4 1st-person-plural imperatives
5.3.4 Optative
5.3.5 Potential
 5.3.6 Eventive
5.4 Infinitives
5.4.1 First infinitive
5.4.2 Second infinitive
5.4.3 Third infinitive
5.4.4 Fourth infinitive
5.4.5 Fifth infinitive
5.5 Verb conjugation
5.6 Participles
5.6.1 Past passive participle
5.6.2 Past active participle
5.6.3 Present passive participle
5.6.4 Present active participle
5.6.5 Agent participle
5.7 Negation of verbs
5.7.1 Present indicative
5.7.2 Present passive
5.7.3 Imperfect indicative
5.7.4 Imperfect passive
6 Adverbs
6.1 Comparative formation
6.2 Superlative formation
6.3 Irregular forms
7 Numbers
8 Sentence structure
8.1 Word order
8.2 Existential sentences
8.3 Forming questions
8.4 Forming answers
9 References
10 See also

Pronouns
The pronouns are inflected in the Finnish language much in the same way that their referent nouns are.

Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. The personal pronouns in Finnish in the
nominative case are listed in the following table:
 Personal pronouns

Finnish English

Singular

min I

sin you

hn he or she

Plural

me we

te you

he they

Polite

Te you

Because Finnish verbs are inflected for person and number, subject pronouns are not required, and the first and
second-person pronouns are usually omitted in standard Finnish except when used for emphasis. In spoken
Finnish, all pronouns are generally used. In the third person, the pronoun is required: "hn menee" = he goes,
"he menevt" = they go. This applies to both colloquial and written language.

In colloquial Finnish, the pronouns se and ne are very commonly used as the singular and plural third-person
pronouns, respectively. Use of hn and he is mostly restricted to writing and formal or markedly polite speech.
Min and sin are usually replaced with colloquial forms (the most common variants m and s, in some
dialects m and s, mn and sn or mie and sie). Me, te and he are short enough to lack reduced colloquial
forms, and their variants are considered dialectal. Some common verbs, such as olla "to be" and tulla "to
come", exhibit similar reduced colloquial forms:

Personal pronouns

Written/Formal Spoken/Colloquial

Singular

(min) olen/tulen m oon/tuun

(sin) olet/tulet s oot/tuut

hn/se on/tulee se on/tulee

Plural

(me) olemme/tulemme me ollaan/tullaan

(te) olette/tulette te ootte/tuutte

he/ne ovat/tulevat ne on/tulee

Polite

Te olette/tulette Te ootte/tuutte

In common with some other languages, the second-person plural can be used as a polite form when addressing
one person; however, this usage is diminishing in Finnish society.

Demonstrative pronouns
The demonstratives are used of non-human animate entities and inanimate objects. However, se and ne are
often used to refer to humans in colloquial Finnish. (This usage is quite correct in a demonstrative sense, i.e.
when qualified by the relative pronoun joka, and in fact it is hypercorrect to replace a demonstrative se or ne
with hn or he just because the antecedent is human.) Furthermore, the demonstratives are used to refer to
group nouns and the number of the pronoun must correlate with the number of its referent.

Demonstrative pronouns

Finnish English

Singular

tm this

tuo that

se it/that

Plural

nm these

nuo those

ne they/those

Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns

Finnish English

kuka who, which (of many)

mik what, which (of many)

ken who, which (of many) - (old or dialectal word)

kumpi which (of two)

kumpainen which (of two) - (old or dialectal word)

"Ken" is now archaic, but its inflected forms are used instead of those of "kuka": "ket" instead of "kuta"
("whom"). "Ket rakastat?" = "Whom do you love?"

Relative pronouns

Relative pronouns

Pronoun Example English

"[s]he is the only one whom (I)

joka (refers to preceding word) "hn on ainoa, jonka muistan"
remember"

mik (refers to preceding clause/

"se on ainoa asia, mink
sentence or to a pronoun or a superlative that refers to a "it is the only thing that (I) remember"
muistan"
thing)

Reciprocal pronouns
 Reciprocal pronouns

Pronoun Example English

"he rakastavat toisiaan" "they love each other" (plural)

toinen
"he rakastavat toinen toistaan" "they love one another" (double singular)

Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronouns

Pronoun Suffix Example English

itse plus corresponding possessive suffix "keitin itselleni teet" "(I) made myself some tea"

Indefinite pronouns

A large group that entails all of the pronouns that do not fall into any of the categories above. Notice that there
are no negative pronouns, such as "nobody"; rather, the positive pronoun is negated with the negative verb ei.
No double negatives are possible.

Indefinite pronouns

Finnish English

joka (uninflected) every, each

jokainen every, everyone

joku some, someone (person)

jompikumpi either one

jokin some, something (animal, thing)

kukin each one

kumpainenkin both (old or dialectal)

kumpikin both

mikin each thing (dialectal)

kenkn anyone (old or poetic)

kukaan (nom.), kene+..+kn (oblique) anyone

ei kukaan no one

kumpikaan either one

ei kumpikaan neither one

mikn anything ei mikn = nothing

mones (nom.), monente- (oblique) the ordinal pronoun (representing first, second, etc.)

Each pronoun declines. However, the endings -kAAn and -kin are clitics, and case endings are placed before
them, e.g. mikn "any", miltkn "from any". It should be noted that there are irregular nominatives. As
indicated, kukaan is an irregular nominative; the regular root is kene- with -kn, e.g. kukaan "(not) anyone",
keneltkn "from (not) anyone".

English lacks a direct equivalent to the pronoun mones; it would be "that-th", or "which-th" for questions. For
examples, Palkkio riippuu siit monentenako tulee maaliin "The reward depends on as-which-th one comes to
the finish", or explicitly "The reward depends on in which position one comes to the finish". It would be
difficult to translate the question Monesko?, but, although far from proper English, the question How manyeth
may give an English-speaking person an idea of the meaning.

Some indefinite adjectives are often perceived as indefinite pronouns. These include:

Indefinite adjectives

Finnish English

ainoa the only one

ers some, certain, one

harva few

itse (non-reflexive) self

kaikki all, everyone, everything

molemmat both

moni many

muu other

muutama some, a few

sama same

toinen (non-reciprocal, non-numeral use) another

Noun forms
The Finnish language does not distinguish gender in nouns or even in personal pronouns: 'hn' = 'he' or 'she'
depending on the referent. There are no articles, neither definite nor indefinite.

Cases

Finnish has fifteen noun cases: four grammatical cases, six locative cases, two essive cases (three in some
Eastern dialects) and three marginal cases. Notice that the word in a given locative case modifies the verb, not a
noun.
 Finnish cases

Case Suffix English prep. Example Translation

Grammatical

nominative (nominatiivi) - - talo house

genitive (genetiivi) -n of / 's talon of (a) house / house's

accusative (akkusatiivi) -, -t or -n - talo / talon house

partitive (partitiivi) -(t)a - taloa house (as an object)

Locative (internal)

inessive (inessiivi) -ssa in talossa in (a) house

elative (elatiivi) -sta from (inside) talosta from (a) house

illative (illatiivi) -an, -en, etc. into taloon into (a) house

Locative (external)

adessive (adessiivi) -lla at, on talolla at (a) house

ablative (ablatiivi) -lta from talolta from (a) house

allative (allatiivi) -lle to talolle to (a) house

Essive

essive (essiivi) -na as talona as a house

translative (translatiivi) -ksi to (role of) taloksi to (being) a house

Marginal

instructive (instruktiivi) -n with (the aid of) taloin with the houses

abessive (abessiivi) -tta without talotta without (a) house

comitative (komitatiivi) -ne- together (with) taloineen with the house(s)

Note that a noun in the comitative case is always followed by a possessive suffix, but an adjective is not: "Mies
ylellisine taloineen", "A man with his luxurious house(s)". Also, only the pronouns' accusative is different from
the nominative and/or genitive: minut, the accusative form of min, "I".

Plurals

There are three different 'plurals' in Finnish:

Nominative plural

The nominative plural is the definite, divisible, telic plural. The suffix is -t; it can only appear in word-final
position; i.e. it is omitted when a possessive suffix is present.

Nominative plural

Finnish English

"koirat olivat huoneessa" "the dogs were in the room"

"huoneet olivat suuria" "the rooms were large"

Following numerals
After numerals greater than one in the nominative singular, the noun is put in the partitive singular. Otherwise
the noun and the numeral agree with each other in number and case.

Following numerals

Finnish English

"huoneessa oli kaksi koiraa" "there were two dogs in the room"

"talossa oli kolme huonetta" "the house had three rooms"

"ostin tietokoneen tuhannella eurolla" "I bought a computer for a thousand euros"

"tarvitsen kahdet kengt" "I need two pairs of shoes"

Inflected plural

This uses the stem of the partitive plural inflected with the same set of endings as for singular nouns. The suffix
is -i-, and it suppresses long vowels; it may only appear before another suffix.

Inflected plural

Finnish English

'huone' -> 'huoneita' '(some) rooms'

-> 'huoneissa' 'in rooms'

As a combined example of plurals

Inflected plural

Finnish English

'lintu on puussa' 'the bird is in the tree'

-> 'linnut ovat puissa' 'the birds are in the trees'

Inflection of pronouns

The personal pronouns are inflected in the same way as nouns, and can be found in most of the same cases as
nouns. For example:
 Inflection of pronouns

Finnish Case Example English

'min' nominative 'I'

('my, mine')

'minun' genitive 'tm talo on minun ' 'this house is mine '

'tm on minun taloni ' 'this is my house'

'minut' accusative 'hn tuntee minut' '[s]he knows me'

'minua' partitive 'hn rakastaa minua' '[s]he loves me'

'tm hertt minussa

'minussa' inessive 'this provokes (lit. awakens) anger in me'
vihaa'

'[s]he was talking about/ of me'. Also used idiomatically to mean 'in my
'minusta' elative 'hn puhui minusta'
opinion'.

'minuun' illative 'hn uskoi minuun' '[s]he believed in me'

'minulla' adessive 'minulla on rahaa' 'I've got some money'

'minulta' ablative 'hn otti minulta rahaa' '[s]he took some money from/off me'.

'minulle' allative 'anna minulle rahaa' 'give me some money'

'sinuna' essive 'sinuna en tekisi sit' 'If I were you, I wouldn't do it' (lit. 'as you')

'hnt luullaan usein

'minuksi' translative '[s]he is often mistaken for me'
minuksi'

Noun/adjective stem types

The stem of a word is the part to which inflectional endings are affixed. For most noun and adjective types, the
nominative case is identical to the basic stem (the nominative is unmarked).

Vowel stems

A word with a vowel stem is one that ends in a vowel in the nominative, and retains a final vowel in all forms.
The stem vowel can however change in certain inflected forms:
 stem sg. sg. pl.
English singular plural pl. gen. Notes
vowel gen. part. part.

fish -a kala kalan kalaa kalat kalojen kaloja a + i becomes oj when after a, e or i.

corner -a kulma kulman kulmaa kulmat kulmien kulmia a + i becomes i when after o or u.

summer - kes kesn kes kest kesien kesi + i becomes i.

e becomes i at the end of a word; e + i becomes

name -e nimi nimen nime nimet nimien nimi
i.

hall -i halli hallin hallia hallit hallien halleja i + i becomes ej.

A stem with a labial vowel-o, -u, -y, - is

light -o valo valon valoa valot valojen valoja
invariable; plural i becomes j between vowels.

teddy Invariable e-stems can be found in very recent

-e nalle nallen nallea nallet nallejen nalleja
bear coinages.

land, A long vowel is shortened before the oblique

-aa maa maan maata maat maiden maita
earth plural -i-.

Historical long mid vowels*ee * *oo have

road -ie tie tien tiet tiet teiden teit been diphthongized, but the original vowel
survives in shortened forms.

The change of original (pre-Proto-Finnic) final *e to /i/ means that the stem vowel of a word ending in /i/
cannot be determined from the nominative alone; one of the inflected forms must be consulted. However, most
old inherited words ending in i decline as e-stems (or consonants stems, see below), while modern loans, where
i frequently is added for phonotactic reasons (as in the case of halli), always decline as i-stems.

Consonant stems

A word with a consonant stem is one where case suffixes can in some cases be affixed directly after the last
consonant for at least some forms. Words with consonant stems come in three broad classes.

The first class of consonant-stem words largely resemble e-stems, but allow elision of the stem vowel in the
partitive singular, and for certain words, plural genitive. In the later case, this involves a special allomorph -ten,
employing the plural marker t rather than i/j.

The final consonant in words of this class must be one of h, l, m, n, r, s, t. Other remarks for e-stem words still
apply.

English stem singular sg. gen. sg. part. plural pl. gen. pl. part. Notes

goat -h(e) vuohi vuohen vuohta vuohet vuohien vuohia

wind -l(e) tuuli tuulen tuulta tuulet tuulien, tuulten tuulia

broth -m(e) liemi liemen lient liemet liemien, lienten liemi m n before t.

sound -n(e) ni nen nt net nien, nten ni

bow -s(e) jousi jousen jousta jouset jousien, jousten jousia

Words of this type may have somewhat irregular declension due to additional historical changes:
 sg. sg. pl.
English stem singular plural pl. gen. Notes
gen. part. part.

- lapsien,
child lapsi lapsen lasta lapset lapsia
ps(e) lasten The first consonant in a cluster of three is lost:Cs
- + t st.
knife veitsi veitsen veist veitset veitsien veitsi
ts(e)

ksien,
hand -t(e) ksi kden ktt kdet ksi
ktten ti becomes si. (Variation of t/d, nt/nn is regular
- and due to consonant gradation.)
nail kynsi kynnen kyntt kynnet kynsien kynsi
nt(e)

- In addition to the previous changes,kt and ktt

two kaksi kahden kahta kahdet kaksien kaksia
kt(e) become ht/hd.

For some words of this type, modern Finnish displays a tendency of development from consonant-stems to e-
stems. For example, the partitive singular of the word tuomi "bird cherry" may be tuonta (consonant stem) or
tuomea (vowel stem).

Another class of consonant-stem words end in a consonant even in the nominative; if a stem vowel is required
for phonotactic reasons, e again appears. Modern Finnish only allows dental and alveolar consonants (l, n, r, s,
t) to occur as word-final, but originally, words ending in h, k, m were possible as well.

sg. pl.
English stem singular sg. gen. plural pl. gen. Notes
part. part.

nivelien,
joint -l(e) nivel nivelen nivelt nivelet niveli
nivelten

- ytimien,
core ydin ytimen ydint ytimet ytimi m n when word-final or beforet.
m(e) ydinten

ahvenien,
perch -n(e) ahven ahvenen ahventa ahvenet ahvenia
ahventen

sisarien,
sister -r(e) sisar sisaren sisarta sisaret sisaria
sisarten

t disappears in vowel-stem forms due to

beer -t(e) olut oluen olutta oluet oluiden oluita
consonant gradation.

Nouns ending in -s

Vocalization or lenition is found in addition to any possible consonant gradation, e.g. kuningas (nominative) ~
kuninkaan (genitive), or mies ~ miehen. The illatives are marked thus: kuninkaaseen, mieheen.

-nen nouns

This is a very large class of words which includes common nouns (for example 'nainen' = 'woman'), many
proper names, and many common adjectives. Adding -nen to a noun is a very productive mechanism for
creating adjectives ('muovi' = 'plastic' -> 'muovinen' = 'made of plastic'/'plastic-like' ). It can also function as a
diminutive ending.

The form behaves like it ended in -s, with the exception of the nominative, where it is -nen. Thus, the stem for
these words removes the '-nen' and adds '-s(e)' after which the inflectional ending is added:
 Finnish English

'muovisessa pussissa' 'in the plastic bag'

'kaksi muovista lelua' 'two plastic toys'

'muoviseen laatikkoon' 'into the plastic box'

Here are some of the diminutive forms that are in use:

Finnish Stemming from English

'ktnen' ksi 'a small hand' (affectionate)

'lintunen' lintu 'birdie', 'a small bird'

'veikkonen' veikko 'lad'

'kirjanen' kirja 'booklet'

'kukkanen' kukka 'a little flower'

'lapsonen' lapsi 'a little child'

The diminutive form mostly lives in surnames which are usually ancient words many of whose meaning has
been obfuscated. Some of the most common:

Finnish From word English

'Rautiainen' rautio blacksmith (of a blacksmith's family)

'Korhonen' korho 'deaf' (of a deaf man's family)

'Leinonen' leino 'sorrowful, melancholic'; alternatively male name Leino as short for Leonard

'Virtanen', 'Jokinen', 'Jrvinen', virta, joki, jrvi, 'the family from by the stream (virta), river (joki), lake (jrvi), peninsula
'Nieminen'... niemi (niemi)'

[A family name assimilated from the name of the farmhouse, after the
'Mikkonen'
householder's name 'Mikko']

possible origin Martikka, a SouthKarelian surname, identical to Russian

'Martikainen'
surname Martika

'Lyytikinen' from 'Lyytikk', originating to Germanic male name 'Lydecke'

Occasionally such nouns become place-names. For example, there is a peninsula called "Neuvosenniemi"
beside a certain lake. "Neuvonen" means "a bit of advice/direction"; at this peninsula people rowing tar barrels
across the lake would stop to ask whether the weather conditions would allow to continue to the other side.
Most place-names ending with -nen assume a plural form when inflected. For instance, the illative of
"Srninen" is "Srnisiin" instead of singular "Srniseen".

-e nouns

Older *-h and *-k-stems have changed rather drastically. The consonant does not survive in any form of the
paradigm, and these nouns make the appearance of ending in an unchanging -e. However, the former existence
of a consonant in still seen in that the dictionary form represents weak gradation, and each word has two stems,
a weak grade stem in which the former final consonant has assimilated (used for the partitive singular), and
strong grade vowel stem to which most case suffixes are applied. The vowel stem has an additional -e-: perhe
'family' -> perhee-: perheess, perheell, etc.; which represents the historical loss of a medial consonant which
is sometimes found in dialects as an -h- (e.g. ruoste 'rust' *ruostehena).
By analogy, in standard Finnish all words ending in 'e' behave as former -h stems. In some dialects, the -h stems
have however shifted to -s instead, e.g. standard vene, in Pohjanmaa venes veneh. The illative case also
changes form with a consonant stem, where the ending -hen is assibilated to -seen, as -hen is the genitive.

The weak grade stem, which is found in the 'dictionary' form results from another historic change in which a
final consonant has been lost. This is important to word inflection, because the partitive ending is suffixed
directly onto this stem, where the consonant has been assimilated to a -t- instead of being lost. Other case
endings are suffixed to the strong grade/vowel stem.

-e nouns

case huone 'room' laite 'device'

kaksi huonetta kaksi laitetta

partitive sg.
'two rooms' 'two devices'

huoneet laitteet
nominative pl.
'rooms' 'devices'

huoneessa laitteessa
inessive sg.
'in the room' 'in the device'

huoneeseen laitteeseen
illative sg.
'into the room' 'into the device'

More of this phenomenon is discussed in Finnish Phonology: Sandhi.

Adjectives
Adjectives in Finnish are inflected in exactly the same way as nouns, and an adjective must agree in number
and case with the noun it is modifying.

For example, here are some adjectives:

Finnish English

'iso' 'big'

'pieni' 'small'

'punainen' 'red'

And here are some examples of adjectives inflected to agree with nouns:

Finnish English

'iso/n talo/n edess 'in front of the big house'

'kaksi pien/t talo/a' 'two small houses'

'punaise/ssa talo/ssa' 'in the red house'

Notice that the adjectives undergo the same sorts of stem changes when they are inflected as nouns do.

Comparative formation

The comparative of the adjective is formed by adding '-mpi' to the inflecting stem. For example:
 Finnish English Finnish English

'iso' 'big' 'iso/mpi' 'bigger'

'pieni' 'small' 'piene/mpi' 'smaller'

'punainen' 'red' 'punaise/mpi' 'redder'

Since the comparative adjective is still an adjective, it must be inflected to agree with the noun it modifies. To
make the inflecting stem of the comparative, the '-mpi' ending loses its final 'i'. If the syllable context calls for a
weak consonant, the '-mp-' becomes '-mm-'. Then '-a-' is added before the actual case ending (or '-i-' in plural).
This should become clear with a few examples:

Finnish English

'iso/mma/n talo/n edess' 'in front of the bigger house'

'kaksi piene/mp/ talo/a' 'two smaller houses'

'punaise/mma/ssa talo/ssa' 'in the redder house'

'punaise/mmi/ssa taloi/ssa' 'in the redder houses'

Superlative formation

The superlative of the adjective is formed by adding '-in' to the inflecting stem. For example:

Superlative formation

Finnish English Finnish English

'iso' 'big' 'iso/in' 'biggest'

'punainen' 'red' 'punais/in' 'reddest'

Note that because the superlative marker vowel is an 'i', the same kind of changes can occur with vowel stems
as happen in verb imperfects, and noun inflecting plurals:

Finnish English Finnish English

'pieni' 'small' 'pienin' 'smallest' (not *'pienein')

Since the superlative adjective is still an adjective, it must be inflected to agree with the noun it modifies. The '-
in' becomes either '-imma-' or '-impa-' (plural '-immi-' or '-impi-') depending on whether the syllable context
calls for a weak or strong consonant. Here are the examples:

Finnish English

'iso/imma/n talo/n edess' 'in front of the biggest house'

'kaksi pien/in/t talo/a' 'the two smallest houses'

'punais/imma/ssa talo/ssa' 'in the reddest house'

'punais/immi/ssa taloi/ssa' 'in the reddest houses'

Irregular forms

The most important irregular form is:

 Main irregular form

Finnish English

'hyv, parempi, paras' 'good, better, best'

The form paree "good" is not found in standard Finnish, but can be found in the Southern Ostrobothnian
dialect.

Notice also:

More irregular forms

Finnish Hypothetic regular English

'pitk, pidempi ~ pitempi, pisin' 'pitk, *pitkempi, *pitkin' 'long, longer, longest'

'short, shorter, shortest'

'lyhyt, lyhyempi ~ lyhempi, lyhin' 'lyhyt, lyhyempi, lyhyin'
(although the standard forms are also used)

There are a small number of other irregular comparative and superlative forms, such as:

Finnish English

'uusi, uudempi, uusin' 'new, newer, newest'

Where the inflecting stem is 'uude-' but the superlative is 'uusin' = 'newest'.

Postpositions and prepositions

Postpositions are more common in Finnish than prepositions. Both postpositions and prepositions can be
combined with either a noun or a possessive suffix to form a P-positional phrase.

Postpositions

Postpositions indicate place, time, cause, consequence or relation. In postpositional phrases the noun is usually
in genitive:

Postpositions

Finnish English

'pydn alla' 'under the table'

'joulun jlkeen' 'after Christmas'

'lasten thden' 'for the sake of the children'

'jonkun puolesta' 'on behalf of somebody'

The noun (or pronoun) can be omitted when there is a possessive suffix:

Finnish English

'(I) am next to (you)' or

'olen _ ''vierell|si' ''
'(I) am by (your) side'

As with verbs, the pronoun can not be omitted in the third person (singular or plural): "Olin __ mukanasi" -> "I
was with you" vs. "Olin hnen mukanaan" -> "I was with him/her"
"Tulen __ mukaanne" -> "I will come with you (plural or polite)" vs. "Tulen heidn mukanaan" -> "I will come
with them"

Prepositions

There are few important prepositions in Finnish. In prepositional phrases the noun is always in the partitive:

Prepositions

Finnish English

ennen joulua before Christmas

ilman sinua without you

Some postpositions can also be used as prepositions:

Prepositions

Finnish Equal Finnish English

kyln keskell keskell kyl in the middle of the village

Verb forms
Finnish verbs are usually divided into seven groups depending on the stem type. All seven types have the same
set of endings, but the stems undergo (slightly) different changes when inflected.

There are very few irregular verbs in Finnish. In fact, only 'olla' = 'to be' has two irregular forms on "is" and
ovat "are (pl.)"; other forms follow from the stem ole/ol; e.g. olet ole+t "you are", olkoon ol+koon "let
it be". A handful of verbs, including 'nhd' = 'to see', 'tehd' = 'to do/make', and 'juosta' = 'to run' have rare
consonant mutation patterns which are not derivable from the infinitive. In spoken Finnish, some frequently
used verbs (menn, tulla, olla, panna) have irregular stems (mee, tuu, oo, paa, instead of mene, tule, ole, pane
("go, come, be, put"), respectively).

Finnish does not have a separate verb for possession (cf. English "to have"). Possession is indicated in other
ways, mainly by genitives and existential clauses. For animate possessors, the adessive case is used with 'olla',
for example 'koiralla on hnt' = 'the dog has a tail' - literally 'on the dog is a tail', or in English grammar,
"There is a tail on the dog". This is similar to Irish and Welsh forms such as "There is a hunger on me".

Tense-aspect forms

Finnish verbs have present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect tense-aspect forms.

Present (nonpast): corresponds to English present and future tense forms. For the latter, a time qualifier
may need to be used to avoid ambiguity. The present is formed with using the personal suffixes only. For
example, otan "I take" (from ottaa, "to take").
Imperfect: actually a preterite, but called "imperfect" for historical reasons; corresponds to English past
continuous and past simple, indicating a past action which is complete but might have been a point event,
a temporally extended event, or a repeated event. The imperfect is formed with the suffix -i- in addition
to the personal suffixes, e.g. otin "I took".
Perfect: corresponds to the English present perfect ("I have eaten") in most of its usages, but can carry
more sense than in English of a past action with present effects. The form uses the verb olla "to be" in the
present tense as an auxiliary verb. Personal suffixes are added to the auxiliary, while the main verb is in
the -nut/-nyt participle form. For example, olen ottanut "I have taken", where ole- is the auxiliary verb
stem, -n is the personal suffix for "I", otta- is the stem for the main verb, and -nut is the participle marker.
 Pluperfect: corresponds to the English past perfect ("I had visited") in its usage. Similarly to perfect, the
verb olla is used in the past tense as an auxiliary verb. For example, olin ottanut "I had taken".

Voices

Finnish has two possible verb voices: active and passive. The active voice corresponds with the active voice of
English, but the Finnish passive voice has some important differences from the English passive voice.

Passive voice

The Finnish passive is unipersonal, that is, it only appears in one form regardless of who is understood to be
performing the action. In that respect, it could be described as a "fourth person", since there is no way of
connecting the action performed with a particular agent (except for some nonstandard forms; see below).

Consider an example: talo maalataan "the house will be painted". The time when the house is being painted
could be added: talo maalataan marraskuussa "the house will be painted in November". The colour and
method could be added: talo maalataan punaiseksi harjalla "the house will be painted red with a brush". But
nothing can be said about the person doing the painting; there is no simple way to say "the house will be
painted by Jim". There is a calque, evidently from Swedish, toimesta "by the action of", that can be used to
introduce the agent: Talo maalataan Jimin toimesta, approximately "The house will be painted by the action of
Jim". This type of expression is considered prescriptively incorrect, but it may be found wherever direct
translations from Swedish, English, etc. are made, especially in legal texts, and has traditionally been a typical
feature of Finnish "officialese". An alternative form, passive + ablative, also a calque from Swedish, was once
common but is now archaic.

Hence the form maalataan is the only one which is needed. Notice also that the theme is in the nominative
case. Verbs which govern the partitive case continue to do so in the passive, and where the object of the action
is a personal pronoun, that goes into its special accusative form: minut unohdettiin "I was forgotten". Whether
the object of a passive verb should be termed the subject of the clause has been debated, but traditionally
Finnish grammars have considered a passive clause to have no subject.

Use of the passive voice is not as common in Finnish as in Germanic languages; sentences in the active voice
are preferred, if possible. Confusion may result, as the agent is lost and becomes ambiguous. For instance, a
bad translation of the English "the PIN code is asked when..." into PIN-koodia kysytn kun... begs the question
"who asks?", whereas laite kysyy PIN-koodia kun... ("the device asks for the PIN code when...") is
unambiguous. Nevertheless, this usage of the passive is common in Finnish, particularly in literary and official
contexts. Occasionally this leads to extreme cases such as valtuusto halutaan erottaa "it is wanted that the
municipal board resigns", implying that there could be popular uprising near, when this suggestion is actually
made by a single person.[1]

It can also be said that in the Finnish passive the agent is always human and never mentioned. A sentence such
as the tree was blown down would translate poorly into Finnish if the passive were used, since it would suggest
the image of a group of people trying to blow the tree down.

Colloquially, the first-person plural indicative and imperative are replaced by the passive, e.g. menemme meille
("we'll go to our place") and menkmme meille ("let us go to our place") are replaced by mennn meille (see
spoken Finnish).[2]

Because of its vagueness about who is performing the action, the passive can also translate the English "one
does (something)", "(something) is generally done", as in sanotaan ett "they say that"

Formation of the passive is dealt with in the article on Finnish verb conjugation.

As first-person plural
In modern colloquial Finnish, the passive form of the verb is used instead of the active first-person plural in the
indicative and the imperative, to the almost complete exclusion of the standard verb forms. For example, in the
indicative, the standard form is me menemme 'we are going', but the colloquial form is me mennn. Without
the personal pronoun me, the passive alone replaces the first-person plural imperative, as in Mennn! 'Let's
go!'. In colloquial speech, the pronoun me cannot be omitted without confusion, unlike when using the standard
forms menemme (indicative) and menkmme (imperative).

An almost identical (though unrelated) shift has happened in French and Brazilian Portuguese, whereby the
impersonal on and a gente replace first-person plural nous and ns respectively.

Zero person

The so-called zero person is a construct in which a verb appears in the third-person singular with no subject,
and the identity of the subject must be understood from the context. Typically the implied subject is either the
speaker or their interlocutor, or the statement is intended in a general sense. The zero person has some
similarity to the English use of the formal subject one.

Saunassa hikoilee "In the sauna, one sweats"

Jos tulee ajoissa, saa paremman paikan "If you arrive in good time, you get a better seat"

Moods

Indicative

The indicative is the form of the verb used for making statements or asking simple questions. In the verb
morphology sections, the mood referred to will be the indicative unless otherwise stated.

Conditional

The conditional mood expresses the idea that the action or state expressed by the verb may or may not actually
happen. As in English, the Finnish conditional is used in conditional sentences (e.g. "I would tell you if I
knew") and in polite requests (e.g. "I would like some coffee").

In the former case, and unlike in English, the conditional must be used in both halves of the Finnish sentence:

"ymmrtisin jos puhuisit hitaammin" = *"I would understand if you would speak more slowly".

The characteristic morphology of the Finnish conditional is 'isi' inserted between the verb stem and the personal
ending. This can result in a 'closed' syllable becoming 'open' and so trigger consonant gradation:

'tiedn' = 'I know', 'tietisin' = 'I would know'.

cf. 'haluan' = 'I want', 'haluaisin' = 'I would like'.

Conditional forms exists for both active and passive voices, and for present tense and perfect.

Imperative

The imperative mood is used to express commands. In Finnish, there is only one tense form (the present-
future). The possible variants of Finnish imperatives are:

1st, 2nd or 3rd person

singular or plural
active or passive
positive or negative
Active, 2nd-person imperatives

These are the most common forms of the imperative: "Do this", "Don't do that".

The singular imperative is simply the verb's present tense without any personal ending (that is, remove the '-n'
from the first-person-singular form):

Active, 2nd-person imperatives

Finnish English

'tule!' 'come!'

'sy!' 'eat!'

'huomaa!' 'note!'

To make this negative, 'l' (which is the active imperative singular 2nd person of the negative verb) is placed
before the positive form:

Finnish English

'l sano!' 'don't say!'

'l mene!' 'don't go!'

'don't lie!'
'l valehtele!'
(from 'valehdella' = 'to lie', type II)

To form the plural, add '-kaa' or '-k' to the verb's stem:

Finnish English

'tulkaa!' 'come!'

'juokaa!' 'drink!'

'measure!'
'mitatkaa!'
(from 'mitata' = 'to measure', type IV)

To make this negative, 'lk' (which is the active imperative present plural 2nd person of the negative verb) is
placed before the positive form and the suffix '-ko' or '-k' is added to the verb stem:

Finnish English

'lk sanoko!' 'don't say!'

'lk menk!' 'don't go!'

'lk tarjotko!' 'don't offer!'

Note that 2nd-person-plural imperatives can also be used as polite imperatives when referring to one person.

The Finnish language has no simple equivalent to the English "please". The Finnish equivalent is to use either
'ole hyv' or 'olkaa hyv' = 'be good', but it is generally omitted. Politeness is normally conveyed by tone of
voice, facial expression, and use of conditional verbs and partitive nouns. For example, voisitteko means "could
you", in the polite plural, and is used much like English "Could you..." sentences: voisitteko auttaa "could you
help me, please?"

Also, familiar (and not necessarily so polite) expressions can be added to imperatives, e.g. menes, menep,
menehn. These are hard to translate exactly, but extensively used by Finnish speakers themselves. Menes
implies expectation, that is, it has been settled already and requires no discussion; menep has the -pa which
indicates insistence, and -hn means approximated "indeed".

Passive imperatives

Passive imperatives

Finnish English

tehtkn let (sth) be done

lkn tehtk let (sth) not be done

olkoon tehty let (sth) have been done

lkn olko tehty let (sth) not have been done

3rd-person imperatives

3rd-person imperatives

Finnish English

'olkoon' 'let it (him, her) be'

'tehkt' 'let them do'

'lkn unohtako' 'let him not forget', 'he better not forget'

'lkt unohtako' 'let them not forget'

1st-person-plural imperatives

1st-person-plural imperatives

Finnish English

'menkmme' 'let's go'

'lkmme tehk' 'let us not do', 'we better not do'

The 1st-person imperative sounds archaic, and a form resembling the passive indicative is often used instead:
'mennn!' = 'let's go!'

Optative

The optative mood is an archaic or poetic variant of the imperative mood that expresses hopes or wishes. It is
not used in normal language.

Optative

Finnish English

ollos o, if only/that/would you were

Potential

The potential mood is used to express that the action or state expressed by the verb is likely but not certain. It is
relatively rare in modern Finnish, especially in speech. Most commonly it is used in news reports and in official
written proposals in meetings. It has only the present tense and perfect. The potential has no specific
counterpart in English, but can be translated by adding "probably" to the verb.
The characteristic morphology of the Finnish potential is -ne-, inserted between the verb stem and the personal
ending. Before this affix, continuants assimilate progressively (pes+ne- pesse-) and stops regressively
(korjat+ne- korjanne-). The verb olla 'to be' in the potential has the special suppletive form lie-, e.g. the
potential of on haettu 'has been fetched' is lienee haettu 'may have been fetched'.

Potential forms exists for both active and passive voices, and for present tense and perfect:

Potential

Finnish English

lienen I may be / it's possible that I am

pessee [s]he may wash / she is [likely] to wash

korjannee [s]he may fix / she is [likely] to fix

surrevat it is possible that they are mourning/ will mourn

se pestneen it will probably be washed (by smb.)

lienette nhneet you may have seen

ei liene annettu possibly may not have been given (by smb.)

In some dialects tullee ('may come') is an indicative form verb (tulee 'comes') but grammatically it is a potential
verb.

Eventive

No longer used in modern Finnish, the eventive mood is used in the Kalevala. It is a combination of the
potential and the conditional. It is also used in some dialects of Estonian.

Eventive

Finnish English

'kvelleisin' 'I probably would walk'

Infinitives

Finnish verbs are described as having four, sometimes five infinitives:

First infinitive

The first infinitive short form of a verb is the citation form found in dictionaries. It is not unmarked; its overt
marking is always the suffix -a or -, though sometimes there are modifications (which may be regarded as
stem or ending modifications depending on personal preference).

Verb stem Finnish infinitive English infinitive

sano- sanoa to say

tiet- tiet to know

luke- lukea to read

When the stem is itself a single syllable or is of two or more syllables ending in -oi or -i, the suffix is -da or -
d, respectively. (This represents the historically older form of the suffix, from which the d has been lost in
most environments.)
 Verb stem Finnish infinitive English infinitive

tuo- tuoda to bring

j- jd to stay

imuroi- imuroida to vacuum

epri- eprid to hesitate

If the stem ends in one the consonants l, r, n, then the final consonant is doubled before adding the infinitive -a
or -. In the case of a stem ending in the consonant s, the infinitive ending gains the consonant t, becoming -ta
or -t. (These consonant stems take a linking vowel -e- when forming the present tense, or -i- when forming the
imperfect, e.g. pest 'to wash' : pesen 'I wash' : pesin 'I washed'). Stems ending in -ts, followed by a link vowel
in the present or imperfect, drop the s from the stem before adding the infinitive marker -a or -.

Verb stem Finnish infinitive English infinitive

men(e)- menn to go

tul(e)- olla to be

pur(e)- purra to bite

pes(e)- pest to wash

mainits(e)- mainita to mention

Some verbs have so called "alternating stems" or multiple stems with weak-strong consonant gradation between
them. It depends on the verb if the infinitive is in the strong or weak form. These have long vowel stems in the
present/future tense, which already ends with -a or -. These verbs drop the a which is present in the present
tense stem and replace it with -t in the first infinitive stem followed by the standard -a or - first infinitive
marker. The a dropping to t weakens a preceding KPT consonant so that a weak grade is seen in the first
infinitive form. This often creates difficulties for the non-Finn when trying to determine the infinitive (in order
to access the translation in a dictionary) when encountering an inflected form. Inflected forms are generally
strong except when the stem ending contains a double consonant and there is only a single vowel separating
this from the last stem KPT consonant.

Inflected Finnish English

English Note
Finnish infinitive infinitive

min putoan I am falling pudota to fall down putoa- strong grade

min putosin I fell down pudota to fall down putosi- strong grade

olen I have fallen

pudota to fall down pudon- weak grade (nn forces weak grade)
pudonnut down

they'll
he kokoavat koota to assemble kokoa- strong grade
assemble

me we'll kokoa- strong grade (mm does not cause weakness becauseoa is
koota to assemble
kokoamme assemble not a diphthong)

Some verbs lose elements of their stems when forming the first infinitive. Some verbs stem have contracted
endings in the first infinitive. Stems ending -ene/-eni in the present/imperfect drop the n and replace it with t,
and where applicable, trigger the weak grade in the infinitive stem. The contracted infinitive ending -eta/-et
have -itse/-itsi verbs take the infinitive stem -ita/it. These contracted verbs may also be subject to consonant
weakening when forming the infinitive

e.g. mainita 'to mention' has the longer conjugated stem mainits- as in mainitsen huomenna, ett... 'I'll mention
tomorrow that...'
e.g. paeta 'to flee' has the longer conjugated stem paken- as in me pakenimme Afganistanista 'we fled from
Afghanistan'

The first infinitive long form is the translative plus a possessive suffix (rare in spoken language).

Finnish English

'...soitti sanoakseen...' '...([s]he) phoned in order to say...'

'tietksemme' (idiomatic use:) 'as far as we know'

'voidakseni lukea' ' in order for me to be able to read'

The first infinitive only has an active form.

Second infinitive

The second infinitive is used to express aspects of actions relating to the time when an action takes place or the
manner in which an action happens. In equivalent English phrases these time aspects can often be expressed
using 'when', 'while' or 'whilst' and the manner aspects using the word 'by' or else the gerund, which is formed
by adding "ing" to English verb to express manner.

It is recognizable by the letter 'e' in place of the usual "a" or "" as the infinitive marker. It is only ever used
with one of two case makers; the inessive "ssa/ss" indicating time or the instructive "n" indicating manner.
Finnish phrases using the second infinitive can often be rendered in English using the gerund.

The second infinitive is formed by replacing the final 'a'/'' of the first infinitive with 'e' then adding the
appropriate inflectional ending. If the vowel before the 'a'/'' is already an 'e', this becomes 'i' (see example from
'lukea' = 'to read').

The cases in which the second infinitive can appear are:

Second infinitive

Finnish English

Active Inessive (while someone is in the act of)

'tehdess' 'when doing'

'sanoessa' 'when saying'

Active Inessive + Possessive Suffix (while themselves in the act of)

'lukiessaan' 'while he is/was reading'

'sanoessasi' 'while you are/were saying'

Passive Inessive (when or while in the act of something being done)

'sanottaessa' 'when saying'

'tehtess' 'when doing'

'luettaessa' 'when reading'

Active Instructive (by means of/ while in the act of)

'tehden' 'by doing'

'sanoen' 'by saying'

'lukien' 'by reading'

'hn tuli itkien huoneeseen' 'she came into the room crying'
The inessive form is mostly seen in written forms of language because spoken forms usually express the same
idea in longer form using two clauses linked by the word kun (when). The instructive is even rarer and mostly
exists nowadays in set phrases (for example 'toisin sanoen' = 'in other words').

If the person performing the action of the verb is the same as the person in the equivalent relative clause, then
the verb uses the appropriate personal possessive suffix on the verb for the person. If the person in the main
clause is different from that in the relative clause then this is indicated by with the person in the genitive and
the verb is unmarked for person.

Second infinitive inessive Equivalent kun phrase English translation

ollessani Englannissa kvin monessa kun olin Englannissa, kvin monessa when I was in England, I went into many
pubissa pubissa pubs

ollessaan Englannissa he kvivt kun he olivat Englannissa, he kvivt when they were in England, they went into
monessa pubissa monessa pubissa many pubs

Jaakon ollessa Englannissa Laura meni Kun Jaakko oli Englannissa, Laura meni when Jaakko was in England, Laura went
Espanjaan Espanjaan to Spain

Third infinitive

This corresponds to the English gerund ("verb + ing" form), and behaves as a noun in Finnish in that it can be
inflected, but only in a limited number of cases. It is used to refer to a particular act or occasion of the verb's
action.

The third infinitive is formed by taking the verb stem with its consonant in the strong form, then adding 'ma'
followed by the case inflection.

The cases in which the third infinitive can appear are:

Case Finnish English

'lukemassa' '(in the act of) reading'

inessive
Example: 'hn on lukemassa kirjastossa' '[s]he's reading in the library'

elative 'lukemasta' '(from just having been) reading'

illative 'lukemaan' '(about to be / with the intention of) reading'

adessive 'lukemalla' '(by) reading'

abessive 'lukematta' '(without) reading'

A rare and archaic form of the third infinitive which occurs with the verb pit:

Case Finnish English

instructive 'sinun ei pid lukeman' 'you must not read'

The third infinitive instructive is usually replaced with the first infinitive short form in modern Finnish.

Note that the '-ma' form without a case ending is called the 'agent participle' (see 'participles' below). The agent
participle can also be inflected in all cases, producing forms which look similar to the third infinitive.

Fourth infinitive

The fourth infinitive has the stem ending -MINEN and indicates obligation, but it is quite rare in Finnish today.
This is because there are other words like pit and tytyy that can convey this meaning.
For example

Fourth Infinitive

Finnish English

'Sinne ei ole menemist' 'There is no going there' i.e. 'One must not go there'

Though not an infinitive, a much more common -MINEN verbal stem ending is the noun construct which gives
the name of the activity described by the verb. This is rather similar to the English verbal noun -ING form, and
therefore as a noun, this form can inflect just like any other noun.

-MINEN noun formation

Finnish English

'lukeminen on hauskaa' 'reading is fun'

'vihaan lukemista' 'I hate reading'

'nautin lukemisesta' 'I enjoy reading'

Fifth infinitive

This is a fairly rare form which has the meaning 'on the point of ...ing / just about to ...'

Fifth infinitive

Finnish English

'olin lukemaisillani' 'I was just about to read'

Verb conjugation

For full details of how verbs are conjugated in Finnish, please refer to the Finnish verb conjugation article.

Participles

Finnish verbs have past and present participles, both with passive and active forms, and an 'agent' participle.
Participles can be used in different ways than ordinary adjectives and they can have an object.

Past passive participle

Finnish English

'after you went home'

'lhdettysi kotiin'
[pass. II participle sg. ess.+ poss.suff.]

Past active participle

Basically this is formed by removing the infinitive ending and adding '-nut/nyt' (depending on vowel harmony)
and in some cases '-lut/lyt' '-sut/syt' '-rut/ryt'. For example:

1st infinitive active past participle

'puhua' 'puhunut'

'syd' 'synyt'
However, depending on the verb's stem type, assimilation can occur with the consonant of the stem ending.

In type II verbs, and 'n' 'l' 'r' or 's' in the stem ending is assimilated to the consonant in the participle ending (as
also happens in formation of the first infinitive, although -s stem endings take an extra t in the first infinitive)

1st Infinitive Stem Active past participle

'menn' ('men-') 'mennyt'

'pest ('pes-') 'pessyt'

'harjoitella' ('harjoittel-') 'harjoitellut'

The assimilation causes the final consonant cluster to be strengthened which in turn can weaken a strong cluster
if one exists in the stem. See harjoitella above.

In verbs of types IV-VI, the 't' at the end of the stem is assimilated to the 'n':

1st Infinitive To To

'haluta' ('halut-') 'halunnut'

'tarvita' ('tarvit-') 'tarvinnut'

'rohjeta' ('rohjet-') 'rohjennut'

Present passive participle

The present passive participle can be constructed from the 'past passive' form of the verb. The '-iin' ending of
the past passive is replaced with '-ava/v', which can be inflected in the same way as the present active
participle. For example:

Infinitive Past Passive Passive Participle English

antaa annettiin annettava Which is to be given

syd sytiin sytv Which is to be eaten

kertoa kerrottiin kerrottava Which is to be told

It is possible to translate this participle in several related ways e.g. 'sanottava' - which must be/is to be said,
which can be said, which will be said or which is said. Here are some sentences and phrases further illustrating
the formation and use of the present passive participle:

Finnish English

Juotava vesi Drinkable water

Onko sinulla mitn sanottavaa? Do you have anything to say?

Onko pydss jotakin sytv? Is there anything to eat on the table? Or even, Is there anything edible on the table?

This participle can also be used in other ways. If used with the appropriate third-person singular form of the
verb 'olla' and with the subject in the genitive it can express necessity or obligation.
Minun on lhdettv - I must leave
Heidn olisi mentv - They would have to go

Inflected in the inessive plural, it can be used in conjungtion with the verb 'to be' to indicate that something can
or cannot be done.
Onko Pekka tavattavissa? - Is Pekka available? Is Pekka able to be met with?
Present active participle

Present active participle

Finnish English

'nukku | va koira' 'sleeping dog'

'hikise | v valo' 'blinding light'

'I pretended to be reading'

'olin luke | v | i | na | ni'
[act. I participle pl. essive + poss. suff.]

Agent participle

The agent participle is formed in a similar way as the third infinitive (see above), adding -ma or -m to the verb
stem. It allows the property of being a target of an action to be formatted as an adjective-like attribute. Like
adjectives, it can be inflected in all cases. For example, ihmisen tekem muodostelma "a man-made
formation". The party performing the action is indicated by the use of genitive, or by a possessive suffix. This
is reflected in English, too: ihmisen tekem "of man's making", or kirjoittamani kirja "book of my writing".
For example:

Agent participle

Finnish English

'tytn lukema kirja' the book read by the girl

'tytn lukemaa kirjaa' (partitive) the book read by the girl

'tytn lukemassa kirjassa' in the book read by the girl

etc.

It is not required for the action to be in the past, although the examples above are. Rather, the construction
simply specifies the subject, the object and the action, with no reference to time. For an example in the future,
consider: huomenna kyttmnnne vlineen on -- "tomorrow, as the instrument you will be using is --".
Here, kyttm "that which is used" describes, i.e. is an attribute to vline "instrument". (Notice the case
agreement between kyttm-n and vlinee-n.) The suffix -nne "your" specifies the person "owning" the
action, i.e. who does it, thus kyttmnne is "that which was used by you(pl.)", and kyttmnnne is "as that
which was used by you".

It is also possible to give the actor with a pronoun, e.g. sinun kyttmsi "that which was used by you". In
standard language, the pronoun sinun "your" is not necessary, but the possessive suffix is. In inexact spoken
usage, this goes vice versa; the possessive suffix is optional, and used typically only for the second-person
singular, e.g. sun kyttms.

Negation of verbs

Present indicative

Verbs are negated by using a negative verb in front of the stem from the present tense (in its 'weak' consonant
form). This verb form used with the negative verb is called a connegative.
 Present indicative

Finnish English Finnish English

Singular

'tiedn' 'I know' 'en tied' 'I don't know'

'tiedt' 'you know' 'et tied' 'you don't know'

'tiet' '(s)he knows' 'ei tied' '(s)he doesn't know'

Plural

'tiedmme' 'we know' 'emme tied' 'we don't know'

'tiedtte' 'you know' 'ette tied' 'you don't know'

'tietvt' 'they know' 'eivt tied' 'they don't know'

Note that the inflection is on the negative verb, not on the main verb, and that the endings are regular apart
from the 3rd-person forms.

Present passive

The negative is formed from the third-person singular "negative verb" - 'ei' - and the present passive with the
final '-an' removed:

Finnish English

'ei puhuta' 'it is not spoken'

'ei tiedet' 'it is not known'

Imperfect indicative

The negative is formed from the appropriate part of the negative verb followed by the nominative form (either
singular or plural depending on the number of the verb's subject) of the active past participle. So for 'puhua' the
pattern is:

Imperfect indicative

Finnish English

Singular

'en puhunut' 'I did not speak'

'et puhunut' 'you did not speak'

'ei puhunut' '([s]he) did not speak'

Plural

'emme puhuneet' 'we did not speak'

'ette puhuneet' 'you did not speak'

'eivt puhuneet' 'they did not speak'

Note one exception: when the 'te' 2nd-person plural form is used in an honorific way to address one person, the
singular form of the participle is used: 'te ette puhunut' = 'you (s, polite) did not speak'.

Imperfect passive
The negative is formed from the third-person singular negative verb - 'ei' - and the nominative singular form of
the passive present participle (compare this with the negative of the imperfect indicative):

Imperfect passive

Finnish English

'ei puhuttu' 'it was not spoken'

'ei tiedetty' 'it was not known'

Note that in the spoken language, this form is used for the first-person plural. In this case, the personal pronoun
is obligatory:

Finnish English

'me ei menty' 'we did not go'

Adverbs
A very common way of forming adverbs is by adding the ending '-sti' to the inflecting form of the
corresponding adjective:

Adverbs

Finnish English

'nopea, nopeasti' 'quick, quickly'

'kaunis, kauniisti' 'beautiful, beautifully'

'hidas, hitaasti' 'slow, slowly'

'helppo, helposti' 'easy, easily'

Adverbs modify verbs, not nouns, therefore they do not inflect.

Comparative formation

The comparative form of the adverb has the ending '-mmin'

Comparative formation

Finnish English

'nopea, nopeasti, nopeammin' 'quick, quickly, more quickly/faster'

'kaunis, kauniisti, kauniimmin' 'beautiful, beautifully, more beautifully'

'hidas, hitaasti, hitaammin' 'slow, slowly, more slowly'

'helppo, helposti, helpommin' 'easy, easily, more easily'

Superlative formation

The superlative form of the adverb has the ending '-immin'.

Superlative formation

Finnish English

'helppo, helposti, helpommin, helpoimmin' 'easy, easily, more easily, most easily'
Because of the '-i-', the stem vowel can change, similarly to superlative adjectives, or to avoid runs of three
vowels:

Finnish English

'nopea, nopeasti, nopeammin, nopeimmin' 'quick, quickly, more quickly/faster, fastest'

'kaunis, kauniisti, kauniimmin, kauneimmin' 'beautiful, beautifully, more beautifully, most beautifully'

'hidas, hitaasti, hitaammin, hitaimmin' 'slow, slowly, more slowly, most slowly'

Irregular forms

There are a number of irregular adverbs, including:

Irregular forms

Finnish English

'hyv, hyvin, paremmin, parhaiten' 'good, well, better, best'

Numbers
Please refer to the separate numbers article for details of how numbers work in Finnish.

Sentence structure
Word order

Since Finnish is an inflected language, word order within sentences can be much freer than, for example,
English. In English the strong subject-verb-object order typically indicates the function of a noun as either
subject or object although some English structures allow this to be reversed. In Finnish sentences, however, the
role of the noun is determined not by word order or sentence structure as in English but by case markings
which indicate subject and object.

The most usual neutral order, however, is subject-verb-object. But usually what the speaker or writer is talking
about is at the head of the sentence.

Finnish English Note

'koira puri miest' 'the dog bit the man' we are talking of the dog and what it did

'miest puri koira' 'the man was bitten by a/the dog' we are talking about the man and what it was that bit him, e.g. not a snake

'koira miest puri' 'the dog bit the man ' we are talking of the dog's actions in a somewhat poetic form

Here koira, dog is in the nominative form but the word expressing man, mies is marked as object by the case
marked form miest. This sentence is a bald statement of fact. Changing the word order changes the emphasis
slightly but not the fundamental meaning of the sentence.
 Finnish English Note

'minulla on rahaa' 'I have money' a bald statement of fact

'rahaa minulla on' 'money is something I do have' although I may not have something else

'rahaa on minulla' 'The money is with me' I am telling you where the money is

'minulla rahaa on' 'I've definitely got (the) money' I am confirming that I do have (the) money

'on minulla rahaa' 'Yes, I do have (the) money' if having money has been questioned

minulla here is the word min (I) in a case form ending -lla which when used with the verb olla (to be,
expressed here in the form 'on') expresses ownership. This is because Finnish does not have a verb form
equivalent of the English word 'have'. Minulla is not considered the subject.

and finally, a classic example:

Finnish Translation

'min olen valtio' 'I am the state' (matter-of-fact)

'valtio olen min' L'tat, c'est moi (French - attributed toLouis XIV)

Besides the word-order implications of turning a sentence into a question, there are some other circumstances
where word-order is important:

Existential sentences

These are sentences which introduce a new subject - they often begin with 'there is' or 'there are' in English.

Finnish English

'huoneessa on snky' 'there is a bed in the room'

The location of the thing whose existence is being stated comes first, followed by its stative verb, followed by
the thing itself. Note how this is unlike the normal English equivalent, though English can also use the same
order:

Finnish English

'siell seisoi mies' '(in/out) there stood a man'

Forming questions

There are two main ways of forming a question - either using a specific question word, or by adding a '-ko/k'
suffix to one of the words in a sentence. A question word is placed first in the sentence, and a word with the
interrogative suffix is also moved to this position:
 Interrogatives (questions)

Finnish English

'mik tm on?' 'what is this?'

'tm on kirja' 'this is a book'

'onko tm kirja?' 'is this a book?'

'tmk on kirja?' 'is this a book?'

'kirjako tm on?' 'is this a book?'

'is this not a book?'

'eik tm ole kirja?'
(note the '-k' goes on the negative verb)

Forming answers

The response to a question will of course depend on the situation, but grammatically the response to a question
typically follows the grammatical structure in the question. Thus a question structured in the inessive case (e.g.
miss kaupungissa asut? /in which town do you live?) will have an answer that is also in the inessive (e.g.
Espoossa /in Espoo) unless special rules dictate otherwise. Questions which in English would be answered with
'yes' or 'no' replies are usually responded to by repeating the verb in either the affirmative or negative.

Interrogatives (questions)

Finnish English

'mihin pin ne lhtee?' 'which way are they headed?'

'Helsinkiin' 'towards Helsinki'

'onko sinulla avain?' 'have you got the key?'

'on'/'ei ole' 'yes'/'no' (literally 'is'/'is not' in possession)

'menettek leffaan?' 'are you guys going to the movies?'

'menemme'/'emme mene' 'yes'/'no' (literally 'we are going'/'we are not going')

'aiotko lhte ilman pipoa?' 'Are you intending to go off without a hat?

'aion' 'Yes' (literally 'I intend')

The words "kyll" and "ei" are often shown in dictionaries as being equivalent to 'yes' and 'no', but the situation
is a little more complicated than that. The typical response to a question which in English is answered 'yes' or
'no' is, as we see above, more usually answered by repeating the verb in either an affirmative or negative form
in the appropriate person. The word 'kyll' is rather a strong affirmation in response to a question and is similar
to the word 'niin' which is an affirmation of a response to a statement of fact or belief. (However, in
conversations, niin may even simply mean that the sentence was heard, not expressing any sort of concurrence.
The same problem occurs with the colloquial joo "yeah".)

Kyll and Niin

Finnish English

'aiotko lhte ilman pipoa?' (question) 'Are you intending to go off without a hat?

'kyll' 'Yes, I sure am' (Strong affirmation. I really do intend to go bareheaded)

'on hlm lhte ulos talviaikana ilman pipoa' (statement) 'it is foolish to go out in wintertime without a hat'

'niin' 'Yes indeed' (I agree with your statement)

The word 'ei' is the negative verb form and has to be inflected for person and the verb itself is usually present,
though not always.

osaatko sin saksaa? can you (speak) German?

en (no; literally: I don't)

or better

en osaa (I cannot)

References
1. http://www.kotus.fi/files/1988/tiilila_hanasaari_2011.pdf
2. http://www.kotus.fi/index.phtml?i=495&s=2612

See also
Finnish
Finnish phonology
Finnish numerals

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This page was last edited on 1 September 2017, at 01:23.

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