Conditional -isi → -is in Speech | Finnish Grammar

The Finnish conditional — the "would" mood, built with the marker -isi- — has a compact spoken shape you will hear constantly: the marker shrinks to -is, and the personal ending falls off with it. So menisin, menisit, and menisi all collapse into a single menis, and the person is left to the pronoun in front (mä menis, sä menis, se menis). This page covers that reduction as a register feature; for how the conditional is built in the first place, see conditional formation.

💡

Two things happen at once: -isi- becomes -is, and the personal ending (-n, -t) drops. The pronoun then carries the person — exactly the pattern you see across spoken Finnish, where endings thin and pronouns do the work.

The collapse, person by person

In standard Finnish every person has its own conditional ending. In casual speech the singular persons flatten into one form:

Standard (yleiskieli)	Spoken (puhekieli)	English
minä menisin	mä menis	I would go
sinä menisit	sä menis	you would go
hän menisi	se menis	he/she would go
me menisimme	me mentäis	we would go
he menisivät	ne menis	they would go

Notice that the third person barely changes — standard menisi is already close to spoken menis (only the final vowel is lost). That is the anchor: the reduction pulls the first and second person toward the third, so all three singular persons meet at menis.

Mitä sä tekis mun tilanteessa?

What would you do in my situation? (spoken; standard: Mitä sinä tekisit)

Mä ottais vielä yhen kahvin, jos saa.

I'd take one more coffee, if that's okay. (spoken: ottais = ottaisin, yhen = yhden)

Se tulis kyllä, mut sillä ei oo aikaa.

She would come, but she doesn't have time. (spoken; standard: Hän tulisi)

The plural persons follow the wider spoken system rather than adding -is endings of their own: "we" uses the passive (me mentäis, see me mennään), and "they" uses ne with a singular verb (ne menis).

💡

Some speakers keep the first-person -n and say mä menisin or mä oisin, and you will hear it. But the fully collapsed mä menis / mä ois is the characteristic casual form, and it is the one to recognise instantly.

olisi → ois: the one to watch

The conditional of olla "to be" is by far the most frequent, and it reduces the hardest: olisin, olisit, olisi all become ois. The l disappears entirely — but the oi diphthong stays. Do not shorten it to os.

Ois kiva nähdä sut joskus.

It'd be nice to see you sometime. (spoken; standard: Olisi kiva nähdä sinut)

Jos mulla ois enemmän rahaa, mä matkustais enemmän.

If I had more money, I'd travel more. (spoken: ois = olisi, matkustais = matkustaisin)

Because ois is so worn down, learners often fail to recognise it as olisi at all. Train your ear: any ois in a "would"-flavoured sentence is simply olisi.

The required pair

Put a whole conditional sentence in both registers and the pattern is clear:

Mä tulis, jos vois.

I'd come if I could. (spoken)

Minä tulisin, jos voisin.

I'd come if I could. (standard / written)

In the spoken version tulisin → tulis and voisin → vois; both keep the -is and drop the -in. In the written version the full -isi- marker and the personal ending are both obligatory.

Ei se haittais, vaikka me myöhästyttäis vähän.

It wouldn't matter even if we were a bit late. (spoken: haittais = haittaisi)

Sais lähtee jo, kello on paljon.

We should get going, it's getting late. (spoken: sais = saisi, lähtee = lähteä)

Comparison with English

English marks the conditional with a separate, unchanging helper — would — that never merges into the verb: I would go, she would go, one fixed word for every person. Finnish does the opposite twice over: it bakes the "would" into the verb as -isi-, and then, in speech, both shrinks that marker and lets the personal ending fall away, so the pronoun ends up carrying the whole load. An English speaker's instinct is to keep pronouncing the full -isin / -isit endings, which is grammatically correct but sounds bookish in casual talk. The mirror-image error is to write the clipped spoken forms — mä tulis, jos vois — in an essay, where the full tulisin, jos voisin is required.

Common Mistakes

❌ (rennossa puheessa) Minä tulisin heti, jos minä voisin.

Over-articulated for casual speech — natural spoken Finnish clips it: Mä tulis heti, jos vois.

✅ Mä tulis heti, jos vois.

I'd come right away if I could. (spoken)

❌ Os kiva nähdä sut.

Incorrect — olisi keeps its oi diphthong: ois, not os.

✅ Ois kiva nähdä sut.

It'd be nice to see you. (spoken)

❌ (esseessä) Mä tulis, jos vois.

Wrong in writing — the essay needs the full marker and ending: Tulisin, jos voisin.

✅ Tulisin, jos voisin.

I would come if I could. (formal)

❌ 'Ois' — mikä sana toi on?

Not recognising the form — ois is just olisi worn down; expect it in any 'would' sentence. ('Ois — what word is that?')

✅ Ois = olisi.

'Ois' is the spoken form of 'olisi'.

Key Takeaways

Spoken Finnish shrinks the conditional marker -isi- to -is and drops the personal ending.
The singular persons collapse: mä menis, sä menis, se menis all replace menisin / menisit / menisi, with the pronoun marking person.
olisi → ois — the l goes, the oi stays. Never os.
Plural "we" uses the passive (me mentäis) and "they" uses ne
- singular (ne menis).
It is puhekieli: in writing, keep the full -isi- marker with vowel harmony and the personal ending (tulisin, jos voisin).

Now practice Finnish

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

Start learning Finnish→