A Finnish postposition normally parks after a noun in the genitive: talon edessä ("in front of the house"). But the moment that noun is replaced by a pronoun — "in front of me", "with you", "behind him" — the construction changes shape. You still put the pronoun in the genitive, but you must also glue a possessive suffix onto the postposition itself. So "in front of me" is not edessä minä but minun edessäni. This double marking trips up almost every English speaker, because English does none of it — "with me" is just a preposition plus an object pronoun. This page drills the pattern until it becomes automatic.
The pattern: genitive pronoun + postposition + possessive suffix
Two things happen at once, and both are obligatory:
- The pronoun goes into the genitive (minun, sinun, hänen, meidän, teidän, heidän).
- The postposition takes a possessive suffix agreeing with that pronoun (-ni, -si, -nsa/-Vn, -mme, -nne, -nsa/-Vn).
Tuletko minun kanssani elokuviin?
Are you coming to the movies with me?
Here minun is the genitive of minä, and kanssa ("with") grows the first-person suffix -ni → kanssani. Neither half is optional in careful speech: the person is spelled out twice, once on the pronoun and once on the postposition.
Älä seiso siinä edessäni — en näe televisiota.
Don't stand there in front of me — I can't see the television.
Kuka tuo sinun takanasi seisova mies on?
Who is that man standing behind you?
The full paradigm
Take any genitive-governing postposition and run the six persons through it. The postposition body stays fixed; only the suffix changes:
| Person | edessä (in front of) | kanssa (with) | takana (behind) |
|---|---|---|---|
| minä (I) | minun edessäni | minun kanssani | minun takanani |
| sinä (you sg.) | sinun edessäsi | sinun kanssasi | sinun takanasi |
| hän (he/she) | hänen edessään | hänen kanssaan | hänen takanaan |
| me (we) | meidän edessämme | meidän kanssamme | meidän takanamme |
| te (you pl.) | teidän edessänne | teidän kanssanne | teidän takananne |
| he (they) | heidän edessään | heidän kanssaan | heidän takanaan |
Meidän edessämme oli pitkä jono, joten päätimme lähteä.
There was a long queue in front of us, so we decided to leave.
Hän sulki oven hiljaa takanaan eikä sanonut mitään.
He closed the door quietly behind him and said nothing.
The pronoun is droppable — the suffix is not
Because -ni already announces "me", the minun in front is grammatically redundant. In relaxed, everyday Finnish it is very commonly left out, especially in the first and second person:
Haluatko tulla kanssani lenkille?
Do you want to come for a run with me?
Istu viereeni, täällä on tilaa.
Sit next to me, there's room here.
You keep the full minun kanssani for emphasis or contrast — "with me, not with him." Otherwise the bare suffixed postposition stands alone perfectly well. What you can never do is the reverse: keep the pronoun and drop the suffix. Minun kanssa is simply ungrammatical.
The third person: -nsa or a lengthened vowel
The third-person suffix (singular hän and plural he alike) has two standard shapes, and this is the main orthographic trap on the page:
- The -nsa / -nsä form: edessänsä, kanssansa, takanansa. This is felt as slightly more formal or literary.
- The -Vn form — copy the postposition's final vowel and add -n, which lengthens that vowel: edessä → edessään, kanssa → kanssaan, takana → takanaan. This is the everyday default in both speech and modern writing.
Both are correct; the lengthened form is what you will hear and read most. The key point for spelling is that the vowel genuinely doubles — edessään has two ä's, takanaan has two a's. A single vowel there is a spelling error.
Lapsi juoksi äitinsä luo ja piiloutui hänen taakseen.
The child ran to its mother and hid behind her.
He ottivat koiran mukaansa mökille.
They took the dog with them to the cabin.
Note mukaansa ("with them / along") — mukaan is an illative-shaped postposition, so its third-person suffix here is -nsa; you would also meet mukaansa built the same way for hän.
It works with the three-way motion forms too
Spatial postpositions that come in a "static / to / from" set keep the suffix in every one of the three. The suffix simply rides on whatever motion form you need:
| At (missä?) | To (mihin?) | From (mistä?) |
|---|---|---|
| edessäni (in front of me) | eteeni | edestäni |
| takanani (behind me) | taakseni | takaani |
| vieressäni (beside me) | viereeni | vierestäni |
Pöytä on liian kaukana — vedä se lähemmäs eteeni.
The table is too far away — pull it closer, in front of me.
How this differs from English
English marks the person exactly once, on an object pronoun that follows the preposition: "with me", "behind him". Finnish marks it twice — a genitive pronoun before and a suffix after — and then routinely deletes the first copy, leaving the suffix to do the work. So the natural Finnish equivalent of "with me" is a single word, kanssani, in which the "me" is a bound ending rather than a separate word. There is no comparable construction in English, which is why the instinct to say kanssa minä ("with I") or kanssa minua ("with me", object case) is so strong — and always wrong.
Common Mistakes
❌ Tule kanssa minä.
Incorrect — a pronoun after a postposition can't be nominative; use genitive + suffix: kanssani.
✅ Tule kanssani.
Come with me.
❌ Seison sinun edessä.
Incorrect — the postposition needs the matching suffix: edessäsi.
✅ Seison sinun edessäsi.
I'm standing in front of you.
❌ Hän istui minun vieressä.
Incorrect — with a pronoun, add the suffix: minun vieressäni (or just vieressäni).
✅ Hän istui vieressäni koko illan.
She sat beside me all evening.
❌ Ovi sulkeutui hänen takana.
Incorrect — the third person needs -nsa or a lengthened vowel: takanaan.
✅ Ovi sulkeutui hänen takanaan.
The door closed behind him.
Key Takeaways
- With a pronoun complement, a postposition takes a possessive suffix: minun kanssani, not minun kanssa.
- The suffixes are -ni, -si, -nsa/-Vn, -mme, -nne, -nsa/-Vn — the same set as on nouns; see possessive suffixes.
- The genitive pronoun is droppable (kanssani alone is fine); the suffix is never droppable.
- The third person is -nsa (formal) or a doubled final vowel + n (everyday): edessään, takanaan, kanssaan — mind the double vowel.
- This is exactly the genitive-pronoun-plus-suffix pattern you already meet in ordinary possession.
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Start learning Finnish→Related Topics
- Double Marking: minun kirjaniA2 — Standard Finnish marks possession twice — the genitive pronoun and the possessive suffix both appear: minun kirjani, 'my book'.
- Possessive Suffixes: -ni, -si, -nsaA2 — Six suffixes mark the owner directly on the noun — taloni, talosi, talonsa, talomme, talonne, talonsa — the obligatory Finnish way to say 'my, your, his' house.
- kanssa: 'with' and the ComitativeA2 — kanssa is the everyday 'with' of company — genitive noun plus kanssa, or a pronoun with a possessive suffix (minun kanssani) — and it is not the 'with' of instruments.
- Place Postpositions: edessä, takana, alla, päälläA1 — The static 'where' postpositions — in front of, behind, under, on top of, beside, between, in the middle of — all taking the noun in the genitive.