The Plural Marker -t (Nominative) | Finnish Grammar

Finnish has two completely different ways of marking a plural, and the single most useful thing a beginner can learn is that they divide the labour cleanly. This page covers the first one: the nominative plural -t. It is the plural of talo → talot ("houses"), and it does exactly two jobs — plural subject and total plural object. Every other plural in the language (in a house → in the houses, on the tables, with the children) is built on a different marker, the -i- stem, which has its own page. Keep those two apart from the start and Finnish plurals stop being frightening.

The rule: stem + -t

The nominative plural is the stem plus -t. For words whose stem is just the dictionary form, you simply add -t:

Singular	Plural	Meaning
talo	talot	house → houses
kissa	kissat	cat → cats
kirja	kirjat	book → books
auto	autot	car → cars
opiskelija	opiskelijat	student → students

Kaupat ovat auki kymmeneen asti.

The shops are open until ten.

Lapset leikkivät pihalla koko iltapäivän.

The children played in the yard the whole afternoon.

Kirjat ovat hyllyssä, jos etsit niitä.

The books are on the shelf, if you're looking for them.

That is the whole rule for a large share of Finnish nouns. The complication — and it is a real one — is that -t attaches to the stem, and the stem is not always the dictionary form.

Attach it to the graded stem

The ending -t closes the last syllable, and a closed syllable triggers the weak grade of consonant gradation. So for words that gradate, the weak grade shows up right before the -t:

Singular	Plural	What changed
katu (street)	kadut	t → d
pöytä (table)	pöydät	t → d
kukka (flower)	kukat	kk → k
silta (bridge)	sillat	lt → ll
käsi (hand)	kädet	stem käde-, t → d
nainen (woman)	naiset	stem naise-

Käsi and nainen are the reminder that you must find the stem first: käsi has the stem käde- (so the plural is kädet, never *käsit), and nainen has the stem naise- (so naiset, never *nainenit). The nominative page explains why the dictionary form so often differs from the stem.

Kädet ovat ihan jäässä — unohdin hanskat kotiin.

My hands are completely frozen — I forgot my gloves at home.

Naiset istuivat kahvilassa ja juttelivat.

The women sat in the café and chatted.

Kadut ovat liukkaat, aja varovasti.

The streets are slippery, drive carefully.

💡

The -t almost always appears in the weak grade because it closes the syllable: katu → kadut, kukka → kukat, pöytä → pöydät. If you can already do the weak grade of a word's genitive, the nominative plural is the same stem with -t instead of -n: kadun → kadut, kukan → kukat.

What the -t plural is FOR

The -t plural is the nominative plural, so it does the nominative's two jobs: it marks the subject and the total object.

As a subject it is straightforward — the plural of whatever is doing the action:

Vieraat tulevat kahdeksalta, joten ehdimme vielä siivota.

The guests are coming at eight, so we still have time to tidy up.

Junat ovat tänään myöhässä lumen takia.

The trains are late today because of the snow.

As a total object it appears in exactly the same constructions where a singular total object is nominative — after an imperative, a necessive ("must / have to"), or a passive — now in the plural:

Osta kaupasta munat ja maito.

Buy eggs and milk from the shop.

Minun täytyy pestä ikkunat ennen juhlia.

I have to wash the windows before the party.

The plural total object munat, ikkunat means the whole set — all the eggs on the list, all the windows — the same "complete, definite" reading the nominative always carries. (A partial plural object, "some eggs," would be the partitive plural munia instead; that is a separate topic.)

The one thing to hold onto: -t is nominative ONLY

Here is the rule that saves beginners months of confusion. The -t plural appears in the nominative (and the identical accusative) — and nowhere else. The moment you need any other case in the plural, you drop -t and switch to the -i- stem:

Meaning	Form	Marker
the houses (subject)	talot	-t (nominative)
in the houses	taloissa	-i- (inessive)
from the houses	taloista	-i- (elative)
onto the houses	taloille	-i- (allative)

There is no such thing as *taloteissa or *talotilla. Once you leave the nominative, -t is gone and -i- takes over. That switch is the whole story of the oblique plural stem -i- page.

💡

Think of Finnish as having two plural markers with a border between them: -t polices the nominative/accusative, -i- everything else. English has a single -s that works everywhere (houses, in the houses, of the houses), so the reflex is to make -t do everything too. Resist it — that reflex produces the classic beginner error *talotissa.

Common Mistakes

❌ Talos ovat vierekkäin.

Incorrect — Finnish never borrows English -s for plurals; the plural of talo is talot.

✅ Talot ovat vierekkäin.

The houses are next to each other.

❌ Asun näissä talotissa.

Incorrect — no case but the nominative uses -t; the inessive plural is built on the -i- stem: taloissa.

✅ Asun näissä taloissa.

I live in these houses.

❌ Käsit olivat kylmät.

Incorrect — the stem is käde-, and -t triggers the weak grade: kädet, not *käsit.

✅ Kädet olivat kylmät.

My hands were cold.

❌ Kukkat ovat pöydällä.

Incorrect — the geminate kk weakens before -t: kukat, not *kukkat.

✅ Kukat ovat pöydällä.

The flowers are on the table.

❌ Osta leipät ja juusto.

Incorrect — leipä has p→v gradation before -t: leivät, not *leipät.

✅ Osta leivät ja juusto.

Buy the loaves and the cheese.

Key Takeaways

The nominative plural is stem + -t: talo → talot, kissa → kissat, nainen → naiset.
The -t closes the syllable, so it usually appears in the weak grade: katu → kadut, kukka → kukat, pöytä → pöydät, käsi → kädet.
It marks the plural subject and the total plural object (after imperatives, necessives, passives): Osta munat!
Only the nominative/accusative uses -t. Every other plural case uses the -i- stem (taloissa, taloille) — never *talotissa.
Do not import English -s (*talos) and do not build other cases on -t — these are the two errors this ending exists to prevent.

Now practice Finnish

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Finnish→