The three demonstratives — tämä ("this"), tuo ("that, over there"), se ("it, that") — are among the most frequent words in Finnish, and they are also among the most irregular. The trap is that their nominative forms tell you almost nothing about how they inflect: tämä builds its cases on a stem tä-, se on a stem si- that shares only one letter with the nominative. English speakers, reasonably but wrongly, add endings straight onto the dictionary form (tämässä, seessä) — forms that do not exist. This page gives you the full paradigm and, more importantly, the three stems you actually attach endings to.
The core idea: learn the stem, not the nominative
Every case form of a demonstrative is built by taking an oblique stem and adding the ordinary case ending you already know from nouns. The endings are completely regular — -ssa/-ssä for inessive, -lla/-llä for adessive, and so on. What is irregular is only the stem:
| Nominative | Oblique stem | Example (inessive) |
|---|---|---|
| tämä (this) | tä- | tä + ssä → tässä |
| tuo (that) | tuo- | tuo + ssa → tuossa |
| se (it/that) | si- / sii- | sii + nä → siinä |
Once you internalise tä- / tuo- / si-, the whole singular paradigm follows. Tuo is the friendly one — its stem is identical to the nominative. Tämä drops its second syllable and works from tä-. Se is the difficult one, and it deserves its own warning below.
The full singular paradigm
| Case | this (tämä) | that (tuo) | it/that (se) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | tämä | tuo | se |
| Genitive | tämän | tuon | sen |
| Partitive | tätä | tuota | sitä |
| Inessive (in) | tässä | tuossa | siinä |
| Elative (out of) | tästä | tuosta | siitä |
| Illative (into) | tähän | tuohon | siihen |
| Adessive (on/at) | tällä | tuolla | sillä |
| Ablative (from) | tältä | tuolta | siltä |
| Allative (to) | tälle | tuolle | sille |
| Essive (as) | tänä | tuona | sinä* |
| Translative (into a state) | täksi | tuoksi | siksi |
The essive of *se is sinä, which is spelled and pronounced identically to sinä "you (singular)". Because of this collision it is almost never used as a pronoun; the everyday word siksi (translative) meaning "for that reason, therefore" is far more common and is worth memorising on its own.
Tässä on kahvi, tuossa on tee — kumpaa haluat?
Here's the coffee, there's the tea — which of the two do you want?
Mistä sait tämän? Se on tosi kaunis.
Where did you get this? It's really beautiful.
Laita avaimet tähän laatikkoon, niin ne eivät katoa.
Put the keys into this box so they don't get lost.
Notice the parallel locative triplet that the brief points to: tässä / tuossa / siinä = "in this / in that / in it". These are everywhere in speech, and siinä in particular doubles as "there" ("Se on siinä" = "It's right there").
The si-/sii- stem of se — the single most-missed form
If you learn one thing from this page, learn this: se does not inflect on an s-e stem, but on si- and sii-. The interior locative cases lengthen the vowel to sii-:
- inessive siinä (not sessä, not sinä for "in it")
- elative siitä
- illative siihen
The other oblique forms use short si-: genitive sen, partitive sitä, adessive sillä, ablative siltä, allative sille. Beginners very often produce seessä or sehen by regularising the nominative — always wrong.
Puhutko sinä siitä eilisestä jutusta?
Are you talking about that thing from yesterday?
Laitoin avaimet sinne, mutta nyt niitä ei ole siinä.
I put the keys there, but now they're not in it.
The plurals: näi- / noi- / nii-
The plural demonstratives nämä ("these"), nuo ("those"), ne ("they, those") switch to yet another set of stems — näi-, noi-, nii- — and ne mirrors se by lengthening to nii- in every oblique case.
| Case | these (nämä) | those (nuo) | they/those (ne) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | nämä | nuo | ne |
| Genitive | näiden (näitten) | noiden (noitten) | niiden (niitten) |
| Partitive | näitä | noita | niitä |
| Inessive | näissä | noissa | niissä |
| Elative | näistä | noista | niistä |
| Illative | näihin | noihin | niihin |
| Adessive | näillä | noilla | niillä |
| Ablative | näiltä | noilta | niiltä |
| Allative | näille | noille | niille |
| Essive | näinä | noina | niinä |
| Translative | näiksi | noiksi | niiksi |
The genitive plural has two equally standard shapes: näiden ~ näitten, noiden ~ noitten, niiden ~ niitten. The -iden forms dominate in modern writing; the -itten forms are common in speech and older prose.
Näiden lasten kanssa ei ole koskaan tylsää.
With these kids it's never boring.
Noista omenoista tulee hyvää piirakkaa.
Those apples will make good pie.
Laitoin ne niihin pusseihin, jotka jäivät kaappiin.
I put them into those bags that were left in the cupboard.
Näinä päivinä sataa melkein koko ajan.
These days it rains almost all the time.
Comparison with English
English has one word each for "this/these" and "that/those", and none of them change for case — you signal grammatical role with word order and prepositions ("in this", "from those"). Finnish folds all of that into the pronoun itself, which is why a single English "that" corresponds to se, sen, sitä, siinä, siitä, siihen, sillä, siltä, sille depending on its job in the clause. There is no shortcut: the demonstratives are function words you will use hundreds of times a day, so drilling the stems tä- / tuo- / si- and näi- / noi- / nii- pays off faster than almost anything else in the grammar.
Common Mistakes
❌ Mitä sinä teet tämässä?
Incorrect — the stem is tä-, not tämä-: the adessive 'with this' is tällä.
✅ Mitä sinä teet tällä?
What are you doing with this?
❌ Avaimet ovat seessä.
Incorrect — 'in it' uses the lengthened stem sii-: siinä, never *seessä.
✅ Avaimet ovat siinä.
The keys are in it / right there.
❌ Pane se sehen.
Incorrect — the illative of se is siihen (stem sii- + -hen).
✅ Pane se siihen.
Put it in there / into it.
❌ Puhun neista ihmisistä.
Incorrect — the plural ne inflects on nii-: 'about those' is niistä.
✅ Puhun niistä ihmisistä.
I'm talking about those people.
Key Takeaways
- Endings are regular; the stem is what changes. Learn tä- / tuo- / si- (singular) and näi- / noi- / nii- (plural).
- se is the hardest: interior locatives lengthen the vowel — siinä, siitä, siihen — while other cases use short si- (sen, sitä, sillä).
- The illative copies the stem vowel for tämä and tuo (tähän, tuohon); se is irregular — siihen, with -e- rather than the -i- the stem sii- would predict.
- Plural genitive comes in two standard forms: näiden ~ näitten, niiden ~ niitten.
- The essive sinä (of se) collides with "you" and is avoided; the translative siksi ("therefore") is the form you actually need.
Now practice Finnish
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Start learning Finnish→Related Topics
- tämä, tuo, seA1 — Finnish has a three-way demonstrative system — tämä (this), tuo (that, by you), se (it/that, known) — plus plurals nämä, nuo, ne.
- Pronoun Declension TablesB1 — One-page reference: full case tables for personal pronouns, demonstratives (tämä/tuo/se), interrogatives (kuka/mikä) and the relative joka.
- Pronoun Case Forms: minä → minua, minutB1 — The full case paradigm of the personal pronouns, including the special accusative minut/hänet/heidät and the partitive minua/häntä, plus tämä/tuo/se.
- tämä, tuo or se?A2 — How to choose between Finnish's three demonstratives — tämä (near me), tuo (over there, pointable) and se (known or out of sight) — where English gets by with just this and that.