Once you can count to a hundred, the rest of the number system is more of the same rule applied at a larger scale: multiply a base (hundred, thousand, million) by a unit, and glue everything into one word. The two things English speakers must unlearn are the little word "and" ("a hundred and five") and the habit of spacing the parts — Finnish writes big numbers solid and uses no connective.
The three bases
| Value | Finnish | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | sata | combining (partitive) form sataa |
| 1 000 | tuhat | combining (partitive) form tuhatta |
| 1 000 000 | miljoona | a loanword, declines like a normal noun |
| 1 000 000 000 | miljardi | 10⁹ — equals the American "billion"; Finnish "biljoona" means 10¹² |
Finnish writes large numbers with a space (or nothing) as the thousands separator, never a comma: 1 000, 25 000. A comma in Finnish is the decimal point (3,14 = "three point fourteen").
Multiplying the base: the partitive shows up again
To say two hundred or three thousand, put the unit in front and the base into its combining form, which is the partitive singular — exactly the same mechanism that turned kymmenen into -kymmentä for the tens. Kaksisataa is literally "two of hundred"; kolmetuhatta is "three of thousand".
| Number | Finnish | Built from |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | kaksisataa | kaksi + sataa |
| 500 | viisisataa | viisi + sataa |
| 900 | yhdeksänsataa | yhdeksän + sataa |
| 2 000 | kaksituhatta | kaksi + tuhatta |
| 7 000 | seitsemäntuhatta | seitsemän + tuhatta |
Kannettava tietokone maksoi kahdeksansataa euroa.
The laptop cost eight hundred euros.
Konserttiin myytiin viisituhatta lippua.
Five thousand tickets were sold to the concert.
The million and billion behave differently: because miljoona and miljardi are ordinary loanwords, the multiplier stays a separate word and the base takes its normal partitive, miljoonaa / miljardia:
Kaupungissa asuu yli kaksi miljoonaa ihmistä.
Over two million people live in the city.
Stacking it all into one word
A full number is assembled largest-part-first, all run together: thousands, then hundreds, then tens, then units. No spaces, no "and".
| Number | Finnish (one word) |
|---|---|
| 105 | sataviisi |
| 234 | kaksisataakolmekymmentäneljä |
| 1 500 | tuhatviisisataa |
| 2 026 | kaksituhattakaksikymmentäkuusi |
| 3 548 | kolmetuhattaviisisataaneljäkymmentäkahdeksan |
Read 3 548 piece by piece and it is completely regular: kolme-tuhatta (3 000) + viisi-sataa (500) + neljä-kymmentä (40) + kahdeksan (8). The length is intimidating on the page, but there is nothing to memorise beyond the bases and the units you already have.
Vuosi kaksituhattakaksikymmentäkuusi alkoi lumisateella.
The year twenty twenty-six began with snowfall.
Matkaa on vielä jäljellä satakaksikymmentä kilometriä.
There are still one hundred and twenty kilometres of the journey left.
For everyday purposes — years, prices, addresses — Finns very often just say the digits or use the shortened spoken tens, but the written, spelled-out form above is what you need for cheques, contracts, and any place a number must be words.
The counted noun stays partitive singular — at every scale
This is the rule that never lets go: after any number greater than one, the thing you are counting is in the partitive singular, and it stays singular no matter how huge the number gets. A hundred euros is sata euroa, not sata euroja. A thousand people is tuhat ihmistä, not tuhat ihmisiä.
| Phrase | Meaning | Noun form |
|---|---|---|
| sata euroa | a hundred euros | partitive singular |
| tuhat vuotta | a thousand years | partitive singular |
| kaksi miljoonaa ihmistä | two million people | partitive singular |
Juoksin viime vuonna yhteensä tuhatviisisataa kilometriä.
Last year I ran one thousand five hundred kilometres in total.
Tähtiä on miljardeja, mutta silmä näkee vain muutaman tuhannen.
There are billions of stars, but the eye sees only a few thousand.
Prices, distances and measures are where you meet these numbers most; the case behaviour of amounts is spelled out further on the measure and price page.
sata and tuhat when they themselves decline
Sata and tuhat are nouns, so they inflect. Learn their two irregular-looking oblique stems and the rest follows the normal case endings. Sata drops into the weak grade sada- (the t → d gradation), while tuhat has the stem tuhanne-.
| Case | sata (100) | tuhat (1000) |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | sata | tuhat |
| Genitive | sadan | tuhannen |
| Partitive | sataa | tuhatta |
| Inessive (in) | sadassa | tuhannessa |
| Illative (into) | sataan | tuhanteen |
| Adessive (at/on) | sadalla | tuhannella |
Sadan euron seteli on nykyään harvinainen näky.
A hundred-euro note is a rare sight nowadays.
Puhumme tässä tuhannen vuoden takaisista tapahtumista.
We're talking here about events from a thousand years ago.
Notice sadan euron seteli: both sata and euro stand in the genitive (sadan euron) because they modify seteli — the full logic of a whole number phrase changing case together is on the declining numbers page.
Common Mistakes
❌ sata ja viisi
Incorrect — Finnish uses no 'and' inside a number: 105 is one word, sataviisi.
✅ sataviisi
one hundred (and) five.
❌ Se maksoi kaksi sataa euroa.
Incorrect — sata glues onto the multiplier as one word: kaksisataa euroa.
✅ Se maksoi kaksisataa euroa.
It cost two hundred euros.
❌ Konsertissa oli tuhat ihmisiä.
Incorrect — the noun stays singular after any number: tuhat ihmistä, not the plural ihmisiä.
✅ Konsertissa oli tuhat ihmistä.
There were a thousand people at the concert.
❌ kaksimiljoonaa asukasta
Incorrect — miljoona stays a separate word: kaksi miljoonaa asukasta.
✅ kaksi miljoonaa asukasta
two million inhabitants.
❌ satan euron seteli
Incorrect — the genitive of sata is sadan (t→d gradation), not *satan: sadan euron seteli.
✅ sadan euron seteli
a hundred-euro note.
Key Takeaways
- Bases: sata (100), tuhat (1000), miljoona (10⁶), miljardi (10⁹).
- Multiply with the partitive combining form: kaksisataa, kolmetuhatta — one word; but kaksi miljoonaa stays two words.
- Whole numbers stack largest-first into one solid word, with no "and" and no spaces: kaksituhattakaksikymmentäkuusi.
- The counted noun is always partitive singular — sata euroa, tuhat ihmistä — never plural.
- sata → genitive sadan (t→d); tuhat → stem tuhanne-, genitive tuhannen.
Now practice Finnish
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Start learning Finnish→Related Topics
- Numbers 11–100A1 — Build the teens with -toista and the tens with -kymmentä — yksitoista (11), kaksikymmentä (20), kaksikymmentäyksi (21) — all written as single words.
- Numbers Take the Partitive Singular: kaksi kissaaA2 — The signature Finnish counting rule — every cardinal above one governs the partitive singular of the counted noun, which stays singular: kaksi kissaa, sata euroa.
- Cases for Measure, Price and DistanceB2 — How Finnish marks price, quantity, distance and rate: number + partitive singular (viisi euroa), measure phrases (litra maitoa), and 'per' with the inessive.
- Declining Numbers: kahdessa talossaB1 — Finnish numerals are inflected nouns — in any case but the counting nominative, both the number and its noun take that case: kaksi taloa → kahdessa talossa.