Common Finnish Words and Phrases
Every language has a bunch of common words and phrases that you should probably learn early on in your language learning journey because they are the words and phrases that come up the most often in conversation.
This page will teach you many such words and phrases, so you can start to speak and understand basic Finnish. To learn all of this important vocabulary, feel free to scroll down through the page or use the quick links provided below to skip to the section of your choice.
Basic Finnish Vocabulary:
Words in bold added during the last update. You can also view this list of common words from English to Finnish.
Quick Links:
Finnish Words for Yes, No, and Maybe
How to Say Please and Thank You in Finnish
Asking Do You Speak English?
Asking How Are You? in Finnish
Exchanging Names in Finnish
Finnish Words of Apology
Finnish Question Words
Asking for Help in Finnish
Finnish Words for Yes, No, and Maybe
Kyllä ➔ Yes
Ei ➔ No
Ehkä ➔ Maybe
How to Say Please and Thank You in Finnish
Ole hyvä ➔ Please
Kiitos ➔ Thank you
Asking Do You Speak English?
Puhutko englantia? ➔ Do you speak English?
Asking How Are You? in Finnish
Mitä kuuluu? ➔ How are you? (lit. what is being heard?)
Miten menee? ➔ How's it going?
Kuinka voit? ➔ How are you feeling?
Hyvää, kiitos. ➔ Fine, thanks.
Ei niin hyvää. ➔ Not so good.
Exchanging Names in Finnish
Mikä on nimesi? ➔ What's your name?
Mikä sinun nimesi on? ➔ What's your name?
Minun nimeni on (name). ➔ My name is (name).
Finnish Words of Apology
Anteeksi ➔ Sorry
Olen pahoillani. ➔ I'm sorry.
Finnish Question Words
Kuka ➔ Who
Mitä ➔ What
Milloin ➔ When
Missä ➔ Where
Miksi ➔ Why
Miten ➔ How
Asking for Help in Finnish
Apua! ➔ Help!
Olen eksynyt. ➔ I'm lost.
Tarvitsen poliisin. ➔ I need the police.
Voitko auttaa minua? ➔ Can you help me?
*List of common Finnish words first posted: March 2, 2025.
Next Up
Greetings in Finnish: Learn how to say greetings and goodbyes in Finnish.
Perhaps you want to learn common words and phrases in these other languages?
Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Bosnian, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Malay, Mandarin, Maori, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Somali, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
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