Interrogatives are words used to make a question. They’re, simply put, Finnish “question words”.

For beginning learners of Finnish, they’re important in a way you might not realize right away. These Finnish question words will give you a clue to what kind of answer is expected. Unlike English, where question words only direct you semantically, in Finnish, question words will also give you a morphological clue: what form should the answer be in? If someone asks you “Millä sinä matkustit Espanjaan?“, the question word “millä” will reveal that the answer will also have to have -lla at the end of the word (e.g. Matkustin bussilla/autolla).

Using the clues the Finnish question words give you will help you form answers that appear in the right case. That’s one step closer to fluent Finnish!

1. Kuka? Who?

As a beginner, that’s all you have to know for now.

2. Mikä? What?

Singular

Plural

In addition, it would be good for you to check out the following:

3. Missä? Where?

The singular and the plural of the missä-question both look the same. The question gets translated as either “where” or “in what”. The missä-question can be answered both with -ssa (kaupassa, hotellissa) and -lla (torilla, bussipysäkillä).

In addition to referring to locations, this case can also have more abstract uses, which are called rections. You can also learn more about some special differences between the -ssa and -lla here.

4. Mistä? From where? From what?

The singular and the plural of the mistä-form both look the same. The question gets translated as either “from where” or “from what”. The mistä-question can be answered both with -sta (kaupasta, hotellista) and -lta (torilta, bussipysäkiltä).

In addition to referring to locations, this case can also have more abstract uses (e.g. the verb tykätä in the table above), which are called rections.

5. Mihin? Minne? To where? To what?

There are two question words that are synonyms here: mihin and minne. There is no difference in meaning between them. The singular and the plural of the question word mihin both look the same. The question gets translated as either “to where”, “where to” or “to what”. The mihin-question can be answered both with the regular mihin-form (kauppaan, hotelliin) and the allative, -lle (torille, bussipysäkille).

In addition to referring to locations, the mihin-question can also have more abstract uses (e.g. the verb uskoa in the table above), which are called rections.

6. Millä? By what?

The question word “millä” is used fairly rarely in Finnish. The most important function it fulfills is to inquire by what or with what someone does something, e.g. by train, by bus, with a spoon, with scissors, with a can opener. The name of this case is the adessive.

You can read more about means of transportation here.

7. Miltä? Of what? Like what?

The question word “miltä” (the ablative case) also has a fairly limited use. It’s mostly used in combination with the perceptional verbs aka verbs that tell something about the senses (e.g. to feel, look, smell).

8. Mille? To what? At what?

The question word “mille” is another one of those with very little use. This case is called the allative. There are some rections that require specifically the -lle form but those are pretty rare (e.g. nauraa, itkeä, hurrata). The most common use is — just like with miltä — with the perceptional verbs.

9. Miksi? Why?

10. Millainen? Minkälainen? What kind?

“Millainen” is a question word that can be inflected in all the cases (e.g. “in what kind of”, “from what kind of”, “as what kind of”). The same is the case for “minkälainen“, which means the exact same as “millainen” and also inflects in the same way.

The answer to the question “millainen” or “minkälainen” is usually an adjective, a color or something else that describes a quality of a thing.

11. Minkä? What? Which?

The question word minkä is the genitive of mikä. There are three main uses for this case in questions. The first one you’ll probably learn in your studies is situations where minkä is followed by an adjective ending in -nen. This is the case in the three first examples I’ve provided.

Second, the question word minkä can be accompanied by a noun in the genitive case. In these situations, you can translate minkä as “which”: which pen, which door. The genitive is used here because these are object sentences. The genitive case is used in object sentences to express that you do something to one, whole thing: Haluan tuon kynän. Avasin tämän oven.

Third, postpositions also require the use of the genitive: talon takana, oven kautta, auton sisällä.

12. Milloin? When?

You can use these expressions of time to answer to the question “milloin“.

13. Mihin aikaan? At what time?

Another way to ask about that time besides “mihin aikaan” would be “moneltako“. Learn more about asking and telling the time in our article.

14. Kuinka? Miten? How?

There is no difference in meaning between “kuinka” and “miten“. Some phrases (like “Miten menee?“) are pretty established to use specifically “miten“, but in most cases both are used as equal synonyms.

15. Kumpi?

The question word kumpi is only used to compare two things. This is in contrast with the interrogative pronoun kuka, which is also used to ask about more than two options. For example, “Kuka voitti?” is used to ask who of a larger group of contestants won, while “Kumpi voitti?” is used to ask who of the two contestants won. In English, you can use “who” for both of these questions (Who won?), but you can also use “which one”. I have a separate article with all the different cases the word kumpi can be inflected in here.

That’s it for the Finnish question words!

Related posts:

Question Word: Kuka? Who? – Interrogative Pronoun Demonstrative Pronouns – Tämä, Tuo, Se, Nämä, Nuo, Ne Tahansa – Anything Anyone Anywhere Finnish Noun Rections – Noun + Noun