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Finnish grammar A1: beginner

The complete guide from A1 to B1: the rules, examples to listen to, the usual mistakes.

Level A1 covers the grammar of first exchanges in Finnish: saying who you are and where, where you go and where you come from, what you do, have, want and must do, asking for some of something, counting and telling the time, describing people and things, giving a first order, and saying where you were yesterday. Most of it is carried by endings: Finnish adds to a word what English says with a separate word.

What A1 covers

  • the present of olla and of the five verb types (puhun, juon, tulen, haluan, tarvitsen), in the affirmative, the negative and the question;
  • the nominative, the genitive (Pekan auto), the partitive (kahvia, kaksi kahvia) and the six local cases (Suomessa, Suomesta, Suomeen; torilla, torilta, torille), in the singular, with the plural of the subject (talot);
  • the stems of the common word types and consonant gradation (kauppa, kaupassa; nainen, naisen; vesi, veden);
  • minulla on for “I have”, the singular imperative (Tule!, Älä tule!), a few polite phrases (Voisitko…?);
  • the numbers, the clock, the days, the months and the date;
  • the past of olla (olin, ei ollut) and of a few common verbs as phrases (menin, kävin);
  • the spoken forms heard every day (mä oon, mulla on, kaks), for recognition.

What is new for an English speaker

  • Finnish has no articles and no grammatical gender: talo is “a house” or “the house”, and hän is both “he” and “she”;
  • endings take the place of English prepositions: talossa (in the house), talosta (out of the house), taloon (into the house); A1 brings the nominative, the genitive, the partitive and the six local cases;
  • the negative is a verb of its own, which takes the person, while the main verb has no ending: en puhu, et puhu, ei puhu;
  • a yes/no question is formed with the ending -ko or -kö on the verb: Puhutko suomea?;
  • there is no verb “to have”: Minulla on auto is “I have a car”, literally “at me is a car”;
  • nouns fall into word types, and in many words a k, p or t changes before an ending (consonant gradation): Turku, Turussa;
  • every ending has two shapes, with a or ä, o or ö, u or y, chosen by the vowels of the word (vowel harmony): talossa, kylässä;
  • spoken Finnish is far from the written language: Mä oon kotona is written Minä olen kotona.

The usual difficulties

  • the partitive where English has nothing or “some”: Juon kahvia, kaksi kahvia, Annalla ei ole tänään aikaa;
  • three Finnish answers to one English “where”: missä?, mistä?, mihin?;
  • the object with -n or in the partitive: Ostan kirjan, Luen kirjaa;
  • the stem of a word before its ending: vesi, vettä, vedessä.

  1. Being and asking

    The verb olla (“to be”) has a form for each person in the present: olen, olet, on, olemme, olette, ovat.

  2. The local cases

    Where English places a preposition before a noun (in, at, on, from, to), Finnish adds an ending to it.

  3. The present

    Finnish verbs are grouped into five verb types by the ending of the infinitive, the dictionary form.

  4. Having

    The genitive, with the ending -n, shows the owner of a thing: Pekan auto is “Pekka's car”.

  5. The partitive

    The partitive is the case of an indefinite amount and of an incomplete whole.

  6. Word types

    Many Finnish nouns and adjectives change before an ending, in two ways.

  7. Numbers and time

    A plural subject is marked with -t.

  8. Describing and the object

    An adjective before a noun agrees with it in case and number; after olla it describes the subject in its basic form.

  9. Commands

    The imperative to one person is the present stem: the minä form without -n.

  10. Postpositions and question words

    Where English has a preposition before a noun, Finnish often has a postposition after a noun in the genitive: pöydän alla (under the table).

  11. Spoken Finnish

    Spoken Finnish differs from the written language: words are shorter, se and ne are used for people, and me takes a form of its own.

  12. The past

    Finnish has one simple past tense, the imperfect, used for an event that is over, often with a time word such as eilen (yesterday) or viime viikolla (last week).

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