Giving a Speech in Finnish – Phrases
April 17, 2019
September 2, 2024
When giving a speech in Finnish, the actual content is of course up to you. However, you can prepare yourself by learning these phrases for giving a speech in Finnish. They’re common phrases to start and end a speech, as well as how to transition from one part to another.
| Finnish | English |
|---|---|
| Introducing your first point | Ensimmäisen kohdan esittely |
| Aloittaakseni, haluaisin ensin sanoa… | To begin with, I’d like to say… |
| Ihan ensiksi… | As a starting point… |
| Ensimmäiseksi… | Firstly… |
| Aluksi… | To begin with… |
| Ensimmäisenä asiana… | As a first point… |
| Clarifying | Selventäminen |
| Tarkoitan, että… | I mean that… |
| Toisin sanoen… | In other words… |
| Siis… | So… |
| Eli… | To rephrase… |
| Tarkoitatko, että… | Do you mean, that… |
| Tarkoitatko oikeasti, että…? | Do you really mean, that… |
| Referring to what you said earlier | Aiempaan viittaaminen |
| Kuten sanoin alussa… | As I said in the beginning… |
| Kuten jo sanoin… | As I already said… |
| Kuten mainitsin edellä… | As I mentioned earlier… |
| Kerroin sinulle hetki sitten, että… | I told you a moment ago, that… |
| Kuten sanottu… | As has been said… |
| Niin kuin oli jo puhetta… | As has been said already… |
| Niin kuin sanoin (jo) aiemmin… | As I said earlier (already)… |
| Niin kuin Pekka (jo) sanoi (aiemmin)… | As Pekka said (earlier already)… |
| Adding | Lisääminen |
| Lisäksi… | Moreover… |
| Toinen asia on… | Another thing is… |
| Myös… | Also… |
| Ja sitten vielä… | And still… |
| Vielä yksi asia… | Still one thing… |
| Vielä halusin ottaa esille… | I still would like to explain… |
| Viimeisenä, mutta ei vähäisempänä… | Last but not least… |
| Returning to the topic | Aiheeseen palaaminen |
| Joka tapauksessa… | Anyway… |
| Missä olinkaan? | Where was I? |
| Palatakseni aiheeseen… | To return to the topic… |
| Kuten olin sanomassa… | As I was saying… |
| Mitä olin sanomassa? | What was I saying? |
| Summarizing | Yhteenveto |
| Yhteenvetona, olemme nyt käyneet läpi… | As an overview, we have now gone through… |
| Lyhyesti asian voi siis sanoa… | In short, this can be explained as… |
| Lopuksi… | Finally… |
| Jos tämä nyt vedetään yhteen… | If we draw a conclusion from this… |
| Kaiken kaikkiaan siis… | So, all in all,… |
| Vielä halusin ottaa esille… | I still would like to explain… |
| Viimeisenä, mutta ei vähäisempänä… | Last but not least… |
I just wanted to say that I love your website!!! Thank you so much for all you do. I am a beginner in learning the Finnish language and you present things in a way I can understand it.
One thing I have a hard time with is…I find a word and put it in the partitive, genitive, etc., but then I am not sure how to put it into a sentence. I would love a section on that…
Anyway, thanks again!!
Thank you for the feedback! As for your question, I think you have things a little bit backwards. The order of things is not word -> case -> sentence.
It should go idea -> word -> sentence -> case. You need to have your sentence in mind BEFORE you start putting words in the cases.
So say you want to express “I have three brothers”. You start with that idea, and then build towards the cases.
– “I” is “minä”
– “three” is “kolme”
– “brother” is “veli”.
Minä – kolme – veli.
Once you get to THIS point you can start thinking about cases.
– “I have” requires the “minulla on”-sentence construction
– after a number, you need to use the partitive.
Minulla on kolme veljeä.
I picked an easy sentence because I’m not sure how much you’ve studied so far 🙂
Just putting words in random cases is pretty counter-intuitive when the idea is to learn to speak or write a language. The inflection of cases like “veli – veljet – veljeä – veljen – veljellä” is pretty useless if you don’t have an idea of what you want to say about that brother. Do you have a brother? What would you like to tell people about him?
Thanks for the useful phrases. I was checking these ones and I find out that last but not least equal phrase in Finnish is different ways “viimeisimpänä muttei vähäisimpänä”, “Viimeisenä muttei vähäisimpänä”, “Viimeisenä vaan ei vähäisimpänä”
Can you explain a little that is there any differences between these?