Spoken Finnish

Learn differences between written and spoken Finnish

These Finnish lessons were written by Josh Pirie.

Need more Finnish? Try the Introductory Finnish Language course at Udemy or the audio-visual lessons at FinnishPod101.com

 

---

Spoken Finnish

The examples and tables shown in this tutorial exemplify written Finnish. However, the spoken language is quite different. For example, the personal pronouns are not spoken in full, and quite often the most common verbs are somewhat truncated. Third person plural is often ignored in favor of the singular. The first person plural is ignored in favor of the passive. Examples are as follows:

	olla	negative	tulla ("to come")	mennä ("to go")
mä:	oon	en oo	tulen > tuun	menen > meen
sä:	oot	et oo	tulet > tuut	menet > meet
se:	on	ei oo	tulee	menee
me:	ollaan	ei olla	tulemme > tullaan	menemme > mennään
te:	ootte	ette oo	tulette	menette > meette
ne:	on	ei oo	tulevat > tulee	menevät > menee

 

In Conclusion

If you decide to study Finnish, be sure to give it the time it will need. It's an easy language to pick apart and study, but it's quite hard to piece together all the components of the morphology in the short time used in everyday conversations. Still, it's a beautiful language, one worthy of deep study. After a few years, you'll be able to tackle the Finnish national epic: Kalevala. Good luck! Or, in Finnish, Onnea Matkaan!

(Much of this tutorial has come from the benefit of my own Finnish professor, Prof. Börje Vähämäki, of the University of Toronto (formerly of the University of Minnesota), and his book Mastering Finnish (1994). Any inaccuracies found in this tutorial are my own. If you have constructive criticism, please feel free to comment: josh.pirie [at] yahoo [dot] ca.)

---