Translate English to Finnish
Finnish is spoken by about 5.5 million people in Finland and by Finnish communities in Sweden, Estonia, and North America. Despite its small number of speakers, Finland punches above its weight in technology, design, gaming, and education. If you need to write an email to a colleague in Helsinki, prepare text for a Finnish website, or understand a product listing from a Finnish store, paste your English text above.
Common English to Finnish translations
| English | Finnish | Pronunciation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hello | Hei | hay | ||
| Good morning | Hyvää huomenta | HOO-vah HOO-oh-men-tah | ||
| Thank you | Kiitos | KEE-tohs | ||
| Please | Ole hyvä | OH-leh HOO-vah | ||
| How much does this cost? | Paljonko tämä maksaa? | PAL-yon-koh TAH-mah MAK-sah | ||
| Where is the bathroom? | Missä on vessa? | MIS-sah on VES-sah | ||
| I do not understand | En ymmärrä | en OOM-mar-rah | ||
| Can you help me? | Voitko auttaa minua? | VOYT-koh OUT-tah MEE-noo-ah | ||
| I would like coffee | Haluaisin kahvia | HAH-loo-ay-sin KAH-vee-ah | ||
| The bill, please | Lasku, kiitos | LAHS-koo KEE-tohs | ||
| Nice to meet you | Hauska tavata | HOUSE-kah TAH-vah-tah | ||
| Goodbye | Näkemiin | NAH-keh-meen | ||
| I need a doctor | Tarvitsen lääkärin | TAR-vit-sen LAH-kah-rin | ||
| Excuse me | Anteeksi | AHN-teek-see |
Tips for English to Finnish translation
Finnish has 15 grammatical cases that change word endings to express relationships English handles with prepositions. “In the house” is talossa, “from the house” is talosta, “to the house” is taloon, and “onto the house” is talolle. All from the root talo (house). This case system is the biggest difference between Finnish and English and the reason Finnish words look so different from their dictionary forms in running text.
Finnish is not related to most European languages. It belongs to the Uralic family alongside Estonian and Hungarian (though Hungarian is only distantly related). This means that word roots look nothing like their English, German, or French equivalents. Koira (dog), kissa (cat), vesi (water) have no recognizable connection to any Indo-European language. Learning Finnish vocabulary requires memorization without the help of cognates.
Finnish has vowel harmony, similar to Turkish. Front vowels (ä, ö, y) and back vowels (a, o, u) generally cannot appear in the same native word. This rule extends to suffixes: the plural marker is -t but the partitive case ending is either -a or -ä depending on the vowels in the root. Vowel harmony makes Finnish words sound melodic and internally consistent.
Finnish compound words can be very long but follow clear logic. Lentokone (airplane) is lento (flight) + kone (machine). Jääkaappi (refrigerator) is jää (ice) + kaappi (cabinet). Työttomyyskassa (unemployment fund) stacks three components. Like German, the last word determines the category, and breaking compounds apart reveals the meaning.
About the Finnish language
Finnish is a Uralic language with no genetic connection to the Indo-European family that includes English, German, French, and most other European languages. Its closest relative is Estonian, and speakers of the two languages can partially understand each other. Finnish has been written since the 16th century, when the bishop Mikael Agricola created the first Finnish-language texts for the Protestant church.
Finland is consistently ranked among the top countries for education, innovation, and quality of life. Finnish is the sole official language alongside Swedish, which has minority status. Despite its complexity, Finnish has a highly phonetic spelling system: every letter is pronounced, and the pronunciation rules are completely regular. If you can read the word, you can pronounce it correctly.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. No account needed, no daily limits, completely free.
Finnish belongs to the Uralic language family, not the Indo-European family. It shares no common ancestor with English, German, or French, which is why vocabulary and grammar look completely unfamiliar.
Yes. Click the speaker icon next to any phrase. Finnish pronunciation is regular and phonetic, so what you see is what you say.
Finnish has 15 grammatical cases that modify word endings to express relationships. Where English uses prepositions (in, on, from, to), Finnish changes the ending of the noun itself.
For everyday emails and casual messages it works well. For official documents, marketing copy, or anything public-facing, have a native Finnish speaker review it. Finnish grammar errors stand out sharply to native readers.
Distantly. Both are Uralic languages, but they diverged thousands of years ago. A Finnish speaker cannot understand Hungarian and vice versa. The relationship is comparable to English and Persian: same family, no mutual intelligibility.
This page is for English to Finnish. Visit our Finnish to English translation page.
Yes. Finnish uses the standard Latin alphabet plus ä and ö. The letters b, c, f, q, w, x, z, and å appear only in loanwords.
No. All processing is real-time. Nothing is logged or shared.
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