Dropped Endings: -i, -n, -t | Finnish Grammar

Spoken Finnish is, above all, an economy drive: it shaves sounds off the ends of words that standard written Finnish (yleiskieli) keeps intact. Three endings vanish most systematically — a word-final -i on certain words, the -t of participles and plurals, and various worn-down word-final -n. None of this is careless; it is the regular, near-universal shape of everyday speech across the country. But every clipped form here is (spoken — puhekieli) and belongs nowhere near an essay, an email, or an exam. This page is about that split, and about not carrying the eroded spellings into writing where the full forms are required. For the neighbouring topic of consonants changing rather than dropping (like tädin → tän), see assimilations; this page is only about sounds falling off the end.

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Everything on this page is (informal / spoken). The written form always keeps the ending: kaksi, tullut, punainen. If you are typing something formal, restore every dropped sound.

Dropped final -i

A small set of very common words loses its final -i in speech. The clearest case is the low numerals:

Kello on jo viis.

It's already five o'clock. (spoken; standard: viisi)

Mä asun kolmannessa kerroksessa, ovi numero kuus.

I live on the third floor, door number six. (spoken: kuus = kuusi)

The same clipping hits certain -si nouns and adjectives, most famously veitsi "knife" and uusi "new":

Anna mulle se veits, mä leikkaan leivän.

Pass me the knife, I'll cut the bread. (spoken: veits = veitsi, mulle = minulle)

Sillä on uus auto, tosi hieno.

She's got a new car, really nice. (spoken: uus = uusi, sillä = a person, colloquially)

Crucially, the numeral keeps its partitive complement — you still count in the partitive, and that noun goes through its own spoken reduction:

Toi makso kaks euroo.

That cost two euros. (spoken; standard: kaksi euroa)

Here kaksi euroa becomes kaks euroo: the numeral drops its -i, and euroa separately wears its final vowel cluster down to euroo (an assimilation, not a dropped ending). The grammar underneath is unchanged — it is still "numeral + partitive." Only the sounds have thinned.

Dropped final -t

The most systematic loss of all is the -t at the end of the active past participle. Standard -nut / -nyt becomes spoken -nu / -ny:

Standard (yleiskieli)	Spoken (puhekieli)	English
tullut	tullu	come (has come)
mennyt	menny	gone
ollut	ollu	been
syönyt	syöny	eaten
lähtenyt	lähteny	left

This drives the everyday perfect and pluperfect, usually alongside the contracted olla forms (olen → oon, see verb contractions):

Oon tullu jo, oon keittiössä.

I've already come, I'm in the kitchen. (spoken; standard: Olen tullut jo)

Mä oon jo syöny, kiitos.

I've already eaten, thanks. (spoken: syöny = syönyt)

Se on lähteny jo töihin.

She's already left for work. (spoken: lähteny = lähtenyt, se = a person)

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Watch the shape: tullut loses only its final -t, leaving a single-u — tullu, never tulluu. Don't compensate by doubling the vowel, and don't touch the long vowels or double consonants that are already there: syöny keeps its ö, menny keeps its nn.

Why the dropped -t is more than laziness: number collapses

Here is the genuinely interesting consequence. Standard Finnish distinguishes a singular participle from a plural one — hän on tullut (one person) versus he ovat tulleet (several). Spoken Finnish flattens both: it uses the singular participle tullu everywhere, paired with a singular verb, and lets the pronoun carry the number.

Ne on jo tullu, ne on tuolla ulkona.

They've already come, they're out there. (spoken; standard: He ovat jo tulleet)

Notice ne on tullu — a plural subject (ne "they"), a singular verb (on, not ovat), and the singular participle tullu. Nothing in the verb phrase tells you it is plural; only ne versus se ("they" versus "he/she") does. So dropping the -t does not just save a sound — it hands the job of marking number over to the pronoun (see se and ne for people).

The plural noun ending -t thins in the same spirit in many dialects, so ne autot can be heard as ne auto with number left to ne — though this one is more regionally variable than the rock-solid participle drop, and Helsinki speech often keeps the plural -t.

Worn word-final -n

Finnish sheds a lot of word-final -n, though — and this matters — not the grammatically loaded ones. The most audible losses are on little function words:

Nii, mä tiiän, älä muistuta.

Yeah, I know, don't remind me. (spoken: nii = niin, tiiän = tiedän)

Soita mulle ku pääset, ni tullaan hakee.

Call me when you get free and we'll come pick you up. (spoken: ku = kun, ni = niin)

So niin → nii, kun → ku, and the connective sitten "then" wears all the way down to sitte or even sit. The -nen ending of adjectives and nouns loses its final -n too in relaxed, fast speech:

Se talo on keltane, sä et voi ohittaa sitä.

That house is yellow, you can't miss it. (very casual: keltane = keltainen)

Toi on tosi mukava ihmine.

That's a really nice person. (very casual: ihmine = ihminen, toi = tuo)

This -nen → -ne clipping is the most dialect-flavoured item on the page: plenty of speakers keep the -n (keltanen, ihminen), and the ai → a step inside punainen → punanen is a separate vowel reduction, not a dropped ending.

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Not every -n goes. The genitive and accusative-n — the one that means "of" or marks a total object — is kept in careful speech: talon katto "the roof of the house," otan sen "I'll take it." Dropping that -n changes the grammar, not just the sound, so speech holds onto it.

Comparison with English

English clips endings too — going → goin', and → 'n' — and treats these as casual spellings you would never put in a report. Finnish works exactly the same way, and that parallel is the safest guide you have: tullu is to tullut what goin' is to going. The trap is a spelling one. English learners, having learned kaksi, tullut, and punainen from a book, tend to keep those full forms even in speech (harmless, just bookish) — but the real error runs the other way, when the clipped forms they pick up by ear leak into their writing, where only kaksi, tullut, and punainen are correct.

Common Mistakes

❌ Esseessä: 'Olen jo tehny kaikki tehtävät.'

Incorrect in writing — the participle keeps its -t: tehnyt. (essee = essay)

✅ Olen jo tehnyt kaikki tehtävät.

I've already done all the exercises.

❌ Mä oon tulluu.

Incorrect — dropping -t leaves a single u, not a long one: tullu.

✅ Mä oon tullu.

I've come. (spoken)

❌ Talo katto vuotaa.

Incorrect — the genitive -n is NOT dropped; it marks 'of': talon katto.

✅ Talon katto vuotaa.

The roof of the house is leaking.

❌ Hinta on kaks euroo.

Too casual for a price sign or any writing — a sign needs the full forms: kaksi euroa.

✅ Hinta on kaksi euroa.

The price is two euros.

❌ Auto on punane.

Incorrect in an exam or any standard writing — use the full adjective: punainen.

✅ Auto on punainen.

The car is red.

Key Takeaways

Casual speech drops final -i on low numerals and a few -si words: viisi → viis, kaksi → kaks, veitsi → veits, uusi → uus. The numeral still takes a partitive complement (kaks euroo).
The participle -t is dropped almost universally: tullut → tullu, mennyt → menny. Leave a single final vowel and keep every other long vowel and double consonant intact.
Dropping -t makes the participle number-neutral, so se vs ne — the pronoun — signals singular vs plural (se on tullu / ne on tullu).
Word-final -n wears off little words (niin → nii, kun → ku) and, in fast speech, the -nen ending (keltainen → keltane) — but the genitive/object -n is kept.
Every clipped form here is puhekieli. Restore the full endings in any writing.

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