mennä ('to go') | Finnish Grammar

Mennä ("to go") is one of the first verbs you will need and one of the most reliable models of a Type 3 verb. Master its four key shapes — menen / menee / meni / mennyt — and you can build every tense and mood it has. Two features define it: the stem is not the infinitive minus the ending but the infinitive minus -nä plus a linking -e- (mennä → mene-), and the past participle assimilates to mennyt (never *mennut, never *menyt).

Principal parts

Principal part	Form
1st infinitive	mennä
Present 1sg	menen
Present 3sg	menee
Past 1sg / 3sg	menin / meni
Past participle	mennyt (pl. menneet)
Passive	mennään

Mennä has no consonant gradation — the stem men- stays constant, which makes it easier than most Type 3 verbs. All its endings take the front-vowel -ä/-e- variant because the stem vowels are front (e, ä).

Present and past

Stem mene-. The 3rd person lengthens the linking -e- to -ee (menee); the past drops it before the -i- marker (meni).

Person	Present	Past
minä	menen	menin
sinä	menet	menit
hän	menee	meni
me	menemme	menimme
te	menette	menitte
he	menevät	menivät
negative	en mene	en mennyt / emme menneet

Mihin sinä menet noin kiireesti?

Where are you going in such a hurry?

Menen huomenna töihin vasta iltapäivällä.

Tomorrow I'm not going to work until the afternoon.

Miten koe meni? — Ei mennyt kovin hyvin.

How did the exam go? — It didn't go very well.

💡

Mennä and tulla form a deictic pair, exactly like English go vs come: mennä is movement away from the speaker's location, tulla movement toward it. If you're at home, you menet kauppaan (go to the shop) but a friend tulee luoksesi (comes to you). Choosing the wrong one is one of the most audible learner errors.

Perfect and pluperfect

Both use olla plus the assimilated participle mennyt (plural menneet).

Person	Perfect	Pluperfect
minä	olen mennyt	olin mennyt
hän	on mennyt	oli mennyt
me	olemme menneet	olimme menneet
he	ovat menneet	olivat menneet
negative	en ole mennyt	en ollut mennyt

Bussi on jo mennyt, joudumme odottamaan seuraavaa.

The bus has already gone, we'll have to wait for the next one.

Conditional, potential, imperative

The conditional adds -isi- to the stem: menisin. The potential (formal/literary) adds -ne-, which assimilates after n to give mennee ("may go"). The imperative singular is the bare stem mene!.

Person	Conditional	Potential (formal)	Imperative
minä	menisin	mennen	—
sinä	menisit	mennet	mene!
hän	menisi	mennee	menköön
me	menisimme	mennemme	menkäämme
te	menisitte	mennette	menkää
he	menisivät	mennevät	menkööt
negative	en menisi	en menne	älä mene / älkää menkö

Menisin mielelläni mukaan, mutta minulla on jo muita suunnitelmia.

I'd gladly come along, but I already have other plans.

Älä mene vielä, jää vähäksi aikaa!

Don't go yet, stay a while!

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The everyday "let's go!" is not the formal menkäämme — it is the passive mennään! (informal). Finns say Mennään kotiin ("let's go home") far more often than the textbook first-person plural imperative, which sounds like a general leading troops.

Passive

Form	Affirmative	Negative
present	mennään	ei mennä
past	mentiin	ei menty
perfect	on menty	ei ole menty
conditional	mentäisiin	ei mentäisi

Because mennä is intransitive, its passive is purely impersonal ("one goes / people go") — and, in speech, it doubles as the colloquial "let's".

Mennään jo, elokuva alkaa kohta!

Let's go already, the film starts soon!

Rection: mennä points into the illative

Mennä is the classic illative verb: a destination reached takes the -Vn / -hVn / -seen ending that means into / to. This is where English speakers stumble, because English uses the same preposition ("at the shop", "to the shop") for location and destination, while Finnish splits them: static location is the inessive (olen kaupassa, "I'm at the shop"), but motion toward is the illative (menen kauppaan, "I go to the shop"). See motion verbs for the full three-way system.

Menemme ensi kesänä Suomeen sukuloimaan.

Next summer we're going to Finland to visit relatives.

Menin eilen nukkumaan aivan liian myöhään.

I went to bed way too late yesterday.

The second example shows the other complement mennä loves: the MA-infinitive illative (-maan/-mään), the "verbal destination" — mennä nukkumaan ("go to sleep"), mennä uimaan ("go swimming"), mennä ostamaan ("go to buy").

Common idioms build on the same verb: mennä naimisiin ("get married"), mennä rikki ("break, stop working"), mennä pieleen ("go wrong"), mennä hukkaan ("go to waste").

He menivät naimisiin viime kesänä pienessä kirkossa.

They got married last summer in a small church.

Meidän pesukone meni rikki, pitää soittaa huoltoon.

Our washing machine broke; we have to call the repair service.

Common Mistakes

❌ Menen kaupassa.

Incorrect — a destination needs the illative, not the inessive.

✅ Menen kauppaan.

I'm going to the shop.

❌ Oletko jo menyt lääkäriin?

Incorrect — the participle assimilates to a double n: mennyt.

✅ Oletko jo mennyt lääkäriin?

Have you already been to the doctor?

❌ Hän men kouluun bussilla.

Incorrect — Type 3 keeps the linking -e-, and 3sg lengthens it: menee.

✅ Hän menee kouluun bussilla.

He/she goes to school by bus.

❌ He menevat kotiin.

Incorrect — the stem is front-vocalic, so the ending is -vät, not -vat.

✅ He menevät kotiin.

They're going home.

Key Takeaways

Stem mene-: drop -nä, add the linking -e-; 3sg lengthens it (menee), the past drops it (meni).
Participle mennyt (pl. menneet) assimilates the -n- of the ending to the stem — never *menyt, never *mennut.
Rection = illative for a destination (menen kauppaan), and the MA-infinitive illative (-maan) for "go and do something".
Colloquial "let's go" = mennään, the passive, not menkäämme.

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