Finnish grammar

Every grammar guide of Lingora’s Finnish A1 course, with examples you can listen to.

01Verbs: Present TenseThe present tense describes what is happening now, what happens regularly, and very often what is going to happen in the near future. Finnish has a…
02Verbs: Past Tense (Imperfect)The past tense reports events that took place and finished at some point in the past - what you did yesterday, last year, or at any specific earlier…
03Verbs: Perfect TenseThe perfect tense links a past action to the present moment. It corresponds to English "I have done": an event that happened at an unspecified time, or…
04Verbs: Conditional MoodThe conditional is the "would" form. It marks something as non-factual - a possibility, a wish, a hypothetical, or a polite request - rather than a plain…
05Verbs: Imperative MoodThe imperative is the command form: giving an order, instruction, invitation, or piece of advice. Which form you use depends on whether you are speaking…
06Verbs: Infinitive FormsAn infinitive is the basic "naming" form of a verb, like English "to go". Where English has just one infinitive, Finnish has several, each belonging to a…
07Verbs: Passive / Impersonal FormFinnish has a single verb form for stating that an action happens without naming who does it. English handles the same idea in two ways - with the…
08Negation with 'ei'English negates by leaving the main verb alone and inflecting a helper: do not, does not, did not. Finnish does the opposite. It has a verb meaning "not"…
09Nouns: Nominative CaseThis is the plain form of a noun, the one a dictionary lists and the one every other form is built from. It carries no ending, and that absence is itself…
10Nouns: Partitive CaseKahvi is coffee. Juon kahvia. is I drink coffee — and the ending on kahvia is doing something English has no word for. It says the coffee is not being…
11Nouns: Genitive CaseEnglish marks an owner with 's or with of: the dog's name, the name of the dog. Finnish marks it with -n on the owner: koira a dog, koiran nimi the dog's…
12Nouns: Accusative CaseFinnish makes a distinction English leaves to context: whether the action got through its object or not. "I ate the apple" and "I was eating an apple"…
13Nouns: Inessive Case (in)Where English puts a preposition in front of a noun, Finnish puts an ending on it. There are six of these endings for place, in two sets of three. One…
14Nouns: Illative Case (into)This is the ending for movement to the inside of somewhere: talo is a house, taloon is into the house. It answers talossa, in the house, which states…
15Nouns: Elative Case (out of / from)English marks origin with a preposition in front of the noun: out of the house, from Finland. Finnish marks it with an ending on the noun itself — talo…
16Nouns: Adessive Case (at / on)This ending puts something on a surface or at a place: pöytä is a table, pöydällä is on the table. It is -lla if the word contains a, o or u, and -llä if…
17Nouns: Allative Case (onto / to)This ending sends something onto a surface, or toward the person who receives it: pöytä is a table, pöydälle is onto the table, and the same ending on a…
18Nouns: Ablative Case (from off / from)This ending takes something off a surface, or away from the person it came from: pöydältä is off the table, and the same ending on a person marks whoever…
19Nouns: Essive Case (as / in the role of)English says as a teacher, as a child — a role held rather than a permanent identity. Finnish says it with an ending: opettaja a teacher, opettajana as a…
20Nouns: Translative Case (into / becoming)This ending marks a change of state — what something turns into, or what someone is training to be. Lääkäri is a doctor; lääkäriksi is into being one.…
21Nouns: Instructive Case (by means of)The instructive is an old case meaning "by" or "with" - the manner or means of an action. In modern Finnish it is largely obsolete and survives mainly in…
22Possessive SuffixesFinnish can mark who owns something with an ending on the thing owned. "My book" becomes one word, kirjani, where -ni means my. There are separate words…
23Question Particle '-ko/-kö'To turn a statement into a yes/no question, English changes the word order or adds "do". Finnish attaches a small particle, -ko or -kö, to the word being…
24Question Words: 'mikä' and 'mitä'mikä is the question word for "what" and "which", and like a noun it takes case endings for the job it does in the sentence. Two of its forms come up…
25Possession with 'minulla on' (Adessive + olla)Finnish has no verb meaning "to have". To say you possess something, the language uses the "on/at" ending (-lla / -llä) on the owner, followed by the…
26Vowel HarmonyVowel harmony is a rule that governs which vowels may appear together in a single word. Finnish vowels divide into two groups, and the vowels of a word -…
27Consonant GradationConsonant gradation is a regular sound change in which the consonants k, p, and t alternate between a stronger and a weaker form as a word takes…
28Expressing 'to be' (olla)olla is the verb "to be" and the most frequently used verb in Finnish. It states identity, location, and condition, and it also builds the perfect tense…
29Personal PronounsFinnish has six personal pronouns, and two of their features make them simpler than their English counterparts: there is no gender distinction in the…
30Demonstratives: This & That (tämä / tuo / se)Demonstratives are the pointing words "this" and "that". Finnish has three rather than two, drawing a finer distinction based on distance from the…
31Possessive Pronouns ('minun', 'sinun', ...)These are the words for "my", "your", "his/her", and so on. They are not a separate set to memorise: each is a personal pronoun carrying -n, the same…
32Politeness with 'te'Finnish has a polite way of addressing one person you do not know well: the pronoun te, which otherwise means "you" for several people, used in place of…
33Nouns: Plural FormsFinnish builds a plural in two entirely different shapes, and which one you need depends on the job the noun is doing. A subject takes one; a noun with…
34Adjectives: Agreement and DeclensionAn English adjective never changes shape: a big house, in a big house, big houses. A Finnish adjective copies whatever ending its noun has taken, so the…
35Postpositions with GenitiveEnglish puts its position words in front of the noun: under the table, with a friend. Finnish puts most of them behind it, and marks the noun in front…
36Comparatives and SuperlativesTo compare things, Finnish changes the adjective, much as English adds "-er" and "-est". There are two steps: the comparative ("bigger") for comparing…
37Necessive: 'on + -tava' (must / have to)This is one of the ways Finnish says something must be done. It puts on ("is") with a verb form ending in -tava or -tävä, which turns the verb into a…