Finnish has 15 cases — the part that overwhelms every learner. Here you watch one familiar word change through them all, each with a picture, a real sentence and native audio. Pick a word and start.
Where English uses little words like in, from, to, of, Finnish glues an ending onto the word itself. “House” is talo; “in the house” is talossa; “from the house” is talosta; “into the house” is taloon. Learn to picture each ending and the whole system clicks.
Nominative (the subject), genitive (“of”), and partitive (some / ongoing) — you meet these in every sentence.
start hereInside: in / out of / into (‑ssa, ‑sta, ‑Vn). Outside: on / off / onto (‑lla, ‑lta, ‑lle). They replace prepositions.
most usefulEssive, translative, abessive and friends — handy later, but you can get a long way without them.
laterTap a word to watch it travel through the cases — each with a picture that shows the meaning, a sentence, and audio. Tap any word or 🔊 to hear it.
The endings at a glance, shown on talo (change the word above to update this).
SuomiSpeak turns this into daily practice — every word with a picture and native audio, illustrated grammar, and speaking practice. Free to start.
15. The everyday essentials are nominative, genitive and partitive, plus the six locative cases (in/out/into and on/off/onto).
Usually the partitive — it marks ongoing actions, quantities and negatives with no single English equivalent. The locatives are easy once you picture them.
Follow one familiar word through every case with a picture and a real sentence, so each ending is tied to a meaning you can see — exactly what this guide (and SuomiSpeak) do.