Clothing: Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan #3

This Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan #3 contains some suggestions on how to approach Finnish when you’re just getting started. It’s not an exhaustive explanation, but rather meant to give you some pointers to get started. We’ll be focusing on clothing beginner Finnish in this lesson.

This series will not be a step-by-step guide to learning Finnish. Just reading this article won’t magically teach you Finnish: you will need to make an effort, click the links and study the subjects mentioned in this series. All the current topics currently are part of the beginner level A1.

Clothing items

The main topic of this lesson is clothes and clothing items.

1. Finnish Vocabulary for Complete Beginners

As a beginner, it’s useful to start with vocabulary lists. After all, you can’t make sentences if you don’t know any vocabulary!

Please note that the vocabulary pages on my website try to offer something for learners of any proficiency. This means that even the beginner subjects will have some information for intermediate and advanced learners. Use common sense and pick the words you will need rather than blindly learning the whole list.

Useful Vocabulary for Clothing Beginner Finnish:

Clothes
The numbers (focus on part 1 on the page)
Colors
Adjectives

2. Finnish Grammar for Complete Beginners

Below, you can find some grammar topics that will allow you to talk about your clothes. It’s important to realize that you can’t learn these topics in isolation. You will need to combine them with the vocabulary topics above that you’ve learned.

Please note that grammar topics like the partitive have super many different uses. As a beginner, you should only focus on what is important for you right at the time when you’re studying. In the case of clothing, all you need is to know that the partitive is used with numbers and in negative sentences. Ignore everything else!

Minulla on -construction: in order to be able to say that you have something.
The genitive case will allow you to say that something is in someone’s possession.
The partitive: only in order to be able to say you have two/three/ten or none of something
Vowel harmony: in order to add the correct ending at the end of words
The T-plural: in order to talk about plurals.

3. Combining Grammar and Vocabulary

The vocabulary around clothes is also a good way to combine the grammar learned in the subjects above.

The minulla on -construction you can express what kind of clothes you have, eg:
- Minulla on paita ja housut. “I have a shirt and pants.”
- Meillä on sukat. “We have the socks.”
Adjectives and colors allow you to give more information about your clothes, eg:
- Minun paita on punainen. “My shirt is red.”
- Minulla on pitkä musta vyö. “I have a long black belt.”
The T-plural will allow you to talk about clothes in the plural, eg:
- Minulla on siniset sukat. “I have blue socks.”
- Minulla on pitkät housut. “I have long pants.”
The partitive case is used in combinations with the numbers, or in negative sentences, eg:
- Minulla on kolme T-paitaa ja viisi puseroa. “I have three T-shirts and five shirts.”
- Minulla ei ole mustaa vyötä. “I don’t have a black belt.”

That’s it for this Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan #3 suggestion about clothing. I know this is not a complete lesson. It’s not meant to be one. The goal is to show you how grammar and vocabulary should be combined with the purpose of getting a message across, rather than just for the sake of learning individual words or grammar.