What language is spoken in Finland?

The main language of Finland is Finnish (suomi). Finland's constitution names two national languages, Finnish and Swedish, and also protects the rights of the Sámi, the Roma and users of sign language.

Finnish

According to Statistics Finland, about 4.7 million people in Finland had Finnish as their registered first language at the end of 2024, which is roughly 84 percent of the population. Counting Finnish speakers abroad, especially in Sweden, there are about 5 million native speakers worldwide.

Finnish is used everywhere in Finnish society: in government, schools, work, media and everyday life. Outside the larger cities and the Swedish-speaking coast, Finnish is often the only language you will need, and the one you will hear.

Swedish

Swedish is the first language of about 5 percent of people in Finland, around 285,000 people at the end of 2024. Finland-Swedish speakers live mainly on the west and south coasts and in the Åland Islands, which are Swedish-speaking.

• Many towns are officially bilingual, so street signs show both names: Helsinki / Helsingfors, Turku / Åbo, Vantaa / Vanda.
• Finnish-speaking pupils usually study Swedish at school, and Swedish-speaking pupils study Finnish.
• Products in shops are usually labelled in both Finnish and Swedish.

If you plan to live in Finland, Finnish is the more useful language in most of the country. In some coastal communities and on Åland, Swedish is the everyday language.

Sámi languages

Three Sámi languages are spoken in Finland: Northern Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi. They are the languages of the Sámi, an Indigenous people, and have official status in the Sámi homeland in northern Lapland. Each has only a small number of speakers, and a lot of work goes into keeping them alive.

Other languages in Finland

• Finnish Sign Language and Finland-Swedish Sign Language are recognised in Finnish law.
• Finnish Romani and Karelian are traditional minority languages.
• About 11 percent of people in Finland had a first language other than Finnish, Swedish or Sámi at the end of 2024. Russian is the largest of these. Others include Estonian, Arabic, English and Ukrainian.
• English is widely spoken, especially by younger people and in cities. You can get by in English as a visitor, but for work and daily life Finnish opens far more doors.

Population figures change every year. For the latest numbers, see Statistics Finland (stat.fi).

Where does Finnish come from?

Finnish belongs to the Uralic language family, in the Finnic branch. It is not related to Swedish, English or other Germanic languages, and it is not related to Russian or other Slavic languages, even though Finland lies between Sweden and Russia.

• Closest relative: Estonian. Many basic words are the same or very similar, though the two are not easily mutually understandable in conversation.
• Other close relatives: Karelian and smaller Finnic languages such as Veps, Votic and Livonian.
• Distant relatives: the Sámi languages and, much further away, Hungarian.

Words borrowed from neighbours

Although Finnish is not related to Swedish or Russian, it has borrowed words from both over many centuries, as well as from other languages.

What Finnish is like

Because of its different family, Finnish works quite differently from English. Words get endings instead of prepositions, there are no articles, and there is no grammatical gender. Spelling follows pronunciation very closely. For an honest overview, read is Finnish hard to learn?, and for the endings, see Finnish cases and vowel harmony.

Written and spoken Finnish

There is one standard written Finnish, used in books, news and official texts. People speak a more relaxed form, and there are regional dialects too. Learners usually start with the standard language and learn spoken Finnish alongside it.

Should you learn Finnish or Swedish?

For most people moving to Finland, Finnish is the better choice: it is the majority language in almost every town, and most jobs that need a local language need Finnish. Swedish can make sense if you will live on Åland or in a Swedish-speaking coastal community. For Finnish citizenship, either Finnish or Swedish is accepted at the time of writing. If you choose Finnish, our step-by-step plan is a good place to start.

Practise with Maija

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