The 5,000 most common Finnish words
Ranked by how often they actually turn up in spoken dialogue, not by how useful somebody guessed they would be.
Every number below is counted from a corpus, and the corpus is named at the bottom.
What each step buys you
Learn the first 100 words of Finnish and you follow 37.5% of everyday speech. The first 1000 take you to 65.2%. After that every thousand words buys less than the thousand before it, which is exactly why the order matters.
| Words known | Speech followed | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 14.6% | |
| 50 | 29.4% | |
| 100 | 37.5% | |
| 250 | 48.7% | |
| 500 | 56.9% | |
| 1,000 | 65.2% | |
| 2,000 | 72.8% | |
| 3,000 | 77.0% | |
| 5,000 | 82.0% | |
| 8,000 | 86.4% | |
| 10,000 | 88.3% | |
| 15,000 | 91.7% | |
| 20,000 | 93.9% |
Comfortable reading starts around 98%. Everything before that is still worth doing, but the first hundred words buy you a foothold, not comprehension.
The first 100 words of Finnish
In order. The percentage is the share of ordinary speech you cover once you know that word and every word above it.
- 1on3.41%
- 2ei5.26%
- 3ja6.96%
- 4se8.5%
- 5hän9.96%
- 6en11.06%
- 7mitä12.13%
- 8että13.1%
- 9ole13.95%
- 10olen14.62%
- 11oli15.27%
- 12niin15.92%
- 13mutta16.55%
- 14sen17.12%
- 15vain17.68%
- 16minä18.21%
- 17jos18.73%
- 18tämä19.21%
- 19nyt19.69%
- 20voi20.15%
- 21sinä20.61%
- 22olet21.05%
- 23kun21.48%
- 24sitä21.87%
- 25kuin22.26%
- 26he22.6%
- 27hänen22.94%
- 28täällä23.27%
- 29olla23.6%
- 30et23.92%
- 31kaikki24.23%
- 32minun24.55%
- 33ovat24.86%
- 34hyvä25.18%
- 35minua25.47%
- 36sitten25.76%
- 37onko26.05%
- 38miksi26.32%
- 39sinua26.59%
- 40miten26.86%
- 41sinun27.12%
- 42älä27.38%
- 43siitä27.64%
- 44hänet27.9%
- 45mitään28.15%
- 46kyllä28.4%
- 47kiitos28.65%
- 48hei28.89%
- 49mikä29.12%
- 50olisi29.35%
- 51ne29.58%
- 52kanssa29.8%
- 53pitää30.01%
- 54joka30.23%
- 55ollut30.44%
- 56tai30.64%
- 57häntä30.84%
- 58tässä31.03%
- 59tiedä31.23%
- 60minulle31.42%
- 61minulla31.61%
- 62jotain31.8%
- 63ehkä31.98%
- 64missä32.16%
- 65tuo32.34%
- 66minut32.52%
- 67me32.69%
- 68oletko32.86%
- 69kuka33.03%
- 70hyvin33.2%
- 71anteeksi33.37%
- 72vielä33.54%
- 73tämän33.7%
- 74sinut33.87%
- 75sinulle34.04%
- 76jo34.2%
- 77koska34.37%
- 78haluan34.52%
- 79olemme34.68%
- 80tiedän34.84%
- 81tehdä34.99%
- 82tänne35.15%
- 83meidän35.3%
- 84emme35.45%
- 85saa35.59%
- 86tule35.73%
- 87paljon35.87%
- 88siellä36.01%
- 89anna36.14%
- 90eivät36.28%
- 91tätä36.41%
- 92pois36.54%
- 93ennen36.67%
- 94sinulla36.8%
- 95täytyy36.93%
- 96aina37.06%
- 97tulee37.18%
- 98siinä37.31%
- 99enää37.43%
- 100eikö37.55%
Open all 5,000 words in the codex →
In the codex you tap the ones you already know and the number moves. It stays in your browser, no account.
Where Finnish comes from
Uralic › Finnish
Finnish has fifteen cases, Hungarian eighteen.
Neither is related to the languages surrounding them.
Words Finnish has that English never built
- sisu SEE-sooStubborn courage that shows up after hope is gone
- kalsarikännit KAL-sa-ri-KEN-nitDrinking at home alone in your underwear with no plan to go out
Where the numbers come from
Frequencies counted over the OpenSubtitles 2018 dialogue corpus, 119,115,210 tokens of Finnish in total. Lists compiled by Hermit Dave, released under CC BY-SA 3.0. Subtitles skew towards conversation, which is the point: this is the language people speak, not the language people publish.