minä / sinä / hän / me / te / he

Personal Pronouns

Level 1

Finnish uses six personal pronouns: minä (I), sinä (you), hän (he/she), me (we), te (you all), and he (they).

How It Works

Finnish personal pronouns are divided into singular and plural forms. Finnish has no grammatical gender; hän can refer to a person of any gender. Many other languages also lack grammatical gender. In formal Standard Finnish (kirjakieli), there is normally a distinction between human and nonhuman referents, but this changes in spoken Finnish (puhekieli).

The Pronouns:

  • minä: I
  • sinä: You (singular, informal)
  • hän: He/She (formal Finnish for humans)
  • se: It (formal Finnish for animals/objects; spoken Finnish for people)
  • me: We
  • te: You (plural or polite; conventionally capitalized as Te when used as a formal, polite singular)
  • he: They (formal Finnish for humans)
  • ne: They (formal Finnish for animals/objects; spoken Finnish for people)

Verb Agreement:
Each pronoun requires a specific personal ending. Due to vowel harmony, endings with 'a' change to 'ä' if the word contains front vowels (y, ä, ö) or if it contains only neutral vowels (e, i). For example:

  • Minä puhun
  • Hän puhuu (Type 1: vowel lengthening)
  • Hän syö (Type 2: No lengthening)
  • He puhuvat / He menevät

Pro-Drop and Register:
In formal Finnish, you can omit the pronoun for 1st and 2nd persons (minä, sinä, me, te). Third-person reference normally needs an expressed subject, though context and special constructions permit omission, such as a shared subject in coordinated clauses. In spoken Finnish, pronouns are usually kept, and minä and sinä become mä and sä. Se and ne are common for people as well as things in speech; hän and he also occur, with regional and conversational variation. 'Se' takes the standard 3rd-person singular verb agreement exactly like 'hän' does, and 'ne' takes a singular verb (e.g., ne puhuu instead of he puhuvat). Furthermore, a widespread colloquial pattern pairs 'me' with the passive verb form (e.g., me mennään instead of me menemme).

Negative Agreement
The negative verb changes with the subject: minä en, sinä et, hän ei, me emme, te ette, he eivät. The present main verb is the connegative: en puhu, et puhu, eivät puhu. In common colloquial speech, me and te remain the same pronouns, while patterns include me ei puhuta and te ette puhu.

Third-Person Singular
A short final stem vowel generally lengthens: puhuu, tulee, haluaa, tarvitsee, vanhenee, spanning types 1 and 3–6. A stem already ending in a long vowel or diphthong gains no extra vowel: saa, syö. Irregular on and tekee must be learned separately.

Examples (5)

  1. Minä olen suomalainen.

    I am Finnish.

    Word by Word: I am Finnish.

    Uses the 1st person singular pronoun 'minä' with the matching verb form 'olen'.

  2. Puhutko sinä englantia?

    Do you speak English?

    Word by Word: Speak-question you English?

    Uses 'sinä' for the informal 'you'. In questions, the pronoun often follows the verb.

  3. Hän asuu Helsingissä.

    He/She lives in Helsinki.

    Word by Word: He/She lives Helsinki-in.

    'Hän' is gender-neutral and can refer to any person.

  4. Me syömme omenaa.

    We are eating an apple.

    Word by Word: We eat apple.

    'Me' is the 1st person plural pronoun.

  5. He ovat ystäviä.

    They are friends.

    Word by Word: They are friends.

    'He' is used for a group of people in written/formal Finnish.

Common Mistakes

  • Ignoring the neutral standard reference pattern.

    Koira on kiva. Hän leikkii.
    Koira on kiva. Se leikkii.

    In neutral standard prose se is normal for a dog. Hän can be used in personification and occurs with animals in conversation, so it is not a universally impossible reference.

  • Repeating a pronoun without intending emphasis.

    Minä asun täällä ja minä opiskelen suomea.
    Asun täällä ja opiskelen suomea.

    The repeated minä is grammatical and can emphasize the speaker. If no contrast is intended, it is often smoother to share the subject, as in Asun täällä ja opiskelen suomea.

  • Lengthening the vowel for all 3rd person singular verbs.

    Hän syöö.
    Hän syö.

    Do not lengthen an already long vowel or diphthong: syö stays syö. Short stem vowels lengthen in types 1 and 3–6; irregular verbs need their own forms.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

minä / sinä / hän / me / te / heLevel 1Personal Pronouns

Learn This First

Personal pronouns are foundational words in Finnish. To use them, you need to know how to pronounce the letters and understand that Finnish uses the same pronoun for all genders.

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Words in This Pattern

metehe