Pronouns aka pronominit are small words with great importance in sentences. Learn more about the different types below!

1.1. Personal Pronouns – Pronominit

Personal pronouns (persoonapronominit) refer to people in reference to the speaker. There are six personal pronouns: three in the singular (I, you, he/she) and three in the plural (we, you, they). He and she are both “hän”.

The personal pronouns can be inflected in all the cases. The question word for these pronouns is “kuka”, which can also be inflected into all the cases. Learn more about the inflection of kuka!

In spoken language the personal pronouns will be slightly different: minä will become mä or mie for example

1.2. Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns (demonstratiivipronominit) substitute nouns. The context will reveal what noun they are referring to. The demonstrative pronouns are: tämä “this”, nämä “these”, tuo “that”, nuo “those”, se “it” and ne “they”. In Finnish they of course inflect in all the cases.

• Read more about demonstrative pronouns.
• Read more about tämä, tuo and se in spoken language.
• The tässä-tästä-tähän forms can be used as adverbs to mean “here”.
• Likewise, tuossa-tuosta-tuohon can be used as adverbs to mean “over there”.

1.3. Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns (interrogatiivipronominit) are question words. Some examples are:

• Kuka? – Who?
• Missä? – Where?
• Mistä? – From where?
• Milloin? – When?
• Miksi? – Why?
• Mihin aikaan? – At what time?
• Kuinka pitkään? – How long?
• Mihin? – Where to?
• Miten? – How?
• Kenen? – Whose?
• Millainen? – What kind?
• Minkävärinen? – What color?

1.4. Relative Pronouns

Both joka and mikä mean “which” or “what” in English. They’re used to connect sentence to one another. Below, you can find the inflection of both mikä and joka. In addition to being used as a relative pronoun, mikä is also a question word.

• Read more about the relative pronoun joka.

1.5. Reflexive Pronouns

The reflexive pronoun itse is used to express that someone does something themselves or to themselves. It can appear both without and with a possessive suffix. Below, you can see the first person “myself” and “ourselves”.

• Read more about the reflexive pronoun itse.
• Learn more about automative verbs replacing itse.

Is there anything more you’d like to learn about pronouns (pronominit)? Let me know in the comments!

Related posts:

Finnish Question Words – Interrogative Pronouns Demonstrative Pronouns – Tämä, Tuo, Se, Nämä, Nuo, Ne Joku Jokin – Jotakuta Jollakin – Finnish Pronouns Tahansa – Anything Anyone Anywhere