Finnish uses the Latin alphabet you already know, with three extra vowel letters bolted onto the end: å, ä, ö. That single fact — where these letters live in the alphabet — is the first thing an English speaker gets wrong, and it matters for everything from looking up a word in a dictionary to finding a name in a list. This page is about the letters as letters: their order, their names, and which ones actually belong to Finnish. How they sound is covered on The Eight Vowels, and why Finnish spelling is so easy to read on One Letter, One Sound.
The headline: ä and ö are not "a and o with dots." They are separate letters, with their own dictionary positions, their own sounds, and their own grammatical behaviour. Treating them as decorated versions of a and o is the deepest and most consequential beginner mistake in the whole writing system, and we will return to it more than once.
The 29 letters, in order
The official Finnish alphabet has 29 letters: the 26 of the basic Latin alphabet, then å, ä, ö appended after z. When you spell a word aloud in Finnish, you use Finnish letter names — not English ones — so a table with names is worth memorising early.
| Letter | Name | Example word | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| A a | aa | aamu (morning) | native |
| B b | bee | banaani (banana) | loan only |
| C c | see | Celsius | loan only |
| D d | dee | sydän (heart) | native |
| E e | ee | eläin (animal) | native |
| F f | äf (äffä) | filmi (film) | loan only |
| G g | gee | gramma (gram) | native only in ng/nk |
| H h | hoo | hylly (shelf) | native |
| I i | ii | ilta (evening) | native |
| J j | jii | joki (river) | native |
| K k | koo | koira (dog) | native |
| L l | äl (ällä) | lintu (bird) | native |
| M m | äm (ämmä) | maa (land) | native |
| N n | än (ännä) | nimi (name) | native |
| O o | oo | ovi (door) | native |
| P p | pee | puu (tree) | native |
| Q q | kuu | Qatar | loan/names only |
| R r | är (ärrä) | raha (money) | native |
| S s | äs (ässä) | silmä (eye) | native |
| T t | tee | talo (house) | native |
| U u | uu | uni (dream/sleep) | native |
| V v | vee | vesi (water) | native |
| W w | kaksoisvee (tuplavee) | Wärtsilä (name) | loan/names only |
| X x | äks (äksä) | taxi → taksi | loan/names only |
| Y y | yy | yö (night) | native |
| Z z | tset (tseta) | zombi (zombie) | loan only |
| Å å | ruotsalainen oo ("Swedish o") | Åland | Swedish names only |
| Ä ä | ää | äiti (mother) | native |
| Ö ö | öö | öljy (oil) | native |
Native versus borrowed letters
Only 21 of the 29 letters write genuinely Finnish sounds: a, d, e, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, v, y, ä, ö. The other eight — b, c, f, q, w, x, z, å — appear only in loanwords and foreign names. This is why Finnish does not use c, q, or x to build its own words: the sounds are spelled with the native letters instead (k, kv, ks), and c/q/x turn up mainly in international vocabulary and surnames. The full story of how those letters behave lives on Letters Only in Loanwords.
Suomen aakkosissa on 29 kirjainta.
The Finnish alphabet has 29 letters.
Sana taksi kirjoitetaan k:lla ja s:llä, ei x:llä.
The word 'taksi' (taxi) is written with a k and an s, not with an x.
The trap that changes everything: ä and ö sort after z
In English, an accented letter is filed with its plain cousin — café sits next to cafe. Finnish does the opposite. Å, ä, and ö are collated after z, at the very bottom of the alphabet, in that order (å, then ä, then ö). They are not variants of a and o; they are the last three entries in the book.
The practical consequences are immediate and constant:
- A word like öljy ("oil") or ääni ("sound, voice") appears near the end of a Finnish dictionary, long after every word beginning with a–z.
- In an alphabetised name list, Sähkö comes after Suomi, not before it, because ä follows all the plain vowels.
- If you go hunting for äiti ("mother") under the letter a, you will never find it.
Sanakirjassa öljy on melkein viimeisenä, ei o-kirjaimen kohdalla.
In the dictionary, 'öljy' (oil) is almost last, not under the letter o.
Sanat ääni ja äiti löytyvät sanakirjan lopusta, eivät alusta.
The words 'ääni' (sound) and 'äiti' (mother) are found at the end of the dictionary, not the beginning.
Nimilistassa Väänänen tulee vasta Virtasen jälkeen.
In a list of names, Väänänen comes only after Virtanen — because ä sorts after every a–z word.
Two more sorting quirks: w and å
W is traditionally sorted together with v. Historically w was simply an old way of writing the v-sound (you still see it in surnames like Wärtsilä and Waltari and in old texts), so in dictionaries and phone books a word or name with w is filed as if it were spelled with v. The two letters interleave.
Puhelinluettelossa Waris ja Varis ovat lähes vierekkäin.
In the phone book, 'Waris' and 'Varis' are almost side by side — w is sorted together with v.
Å — the "Swedish o" — is in the alphabet but never in a native Finnish word. Finland is officially bilingual, so Swedish place names and surnames appear everywhere, and å comes with them: the autonomous islands of Åland (Finnish name: Ahvenanmaa), the old Swedish name Åbo for the city of Turku, family names like Ståhlberg. The letter exists so these names can be written correctly — but you will never need it to spell a Finnish word. It is pronounced like a long Finnish o.
Åland on ruotsinkielinen maakunta, suomeksi Ahvenanmaa.
Åland is a Swedish-speaking province — in Finnish, Ahvenanmaa.
Common Mistakes
❌ Etsin sanaa ääni a-kirjaimen kohdalta.
Incorrect — looking up 'ääni' under the letter a. Ä is not a; it sorts after z.
✅ Etsin sanaa ääni aakkosten lopusta.
I look for 'ääni' at the end of the alphabet — where ä (and ö) actually sort.
❌ Sana taxi on suomea.
Incorrect — 'taxi' with an x is not Finnish spelling; x is a loan-only letter.
✅ Sana taksi on suomea.
The word 'taksi' is Finnish — native words use ks, not x.
❌ Å ja ä ovat sama kirjain.
Incorrect — å and ä are two different letters, in different alphabet positions.
✅ Å, ä ja ö ovat kolme eri kirjainta.
Å, ä and ö are three separate letters — and å appears only in Swedish names.
❌ W äännetään kuten englannin 'w'.
Incorrect — Finnish w is pronounced like a v, and is sorted together with v.
✅ W äännetään kuten v: Wärtsilä = 'Värtsilä'.
W is pronounced like v: 'Wärtsilä' sounds like 'Värtsilä'.
Key Takeaways
- Finnish has 29 letters: a–z, then å, ä, ö at the end.
- Ä and ö are independent letters that sort after z, not accented a/o — so words in ä and ö sit at the end of any alphabetical list.
- Spell aloud with Finnish letter names (koo, ässä, kaksoisvee, tseta, ää, öö), not English ones.
- Only 21 letters are native; b, c, f, q, w, x, z, å appear only in loanwords and names.
- W sorts together with v; å (the "Swedish o") is in the alphabet purely for Swedish names and never spells a native word.
Now practice Finnish
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Start learning Finnish→Related Topics
- The Letters Ä and ÖA1 — Ä and ö are not decorated a and o — they are separate vowels and separate phonemes, and choosing one over the other changes both the word and every ending it takes.
- Letters Only in Loanwords: B, C, F, Q, W, X, Z, ÅA1 — Eight letters outside Finnish's native sound system — how older loans dropped them (koulu, kahvi), how newer loans keep them, and why they always take Finnish pronunciation.
- One Letter, One Sound: Finnish SpellingA1 — Finnish spelling maps almost perfectly to sound — no silent letters, no reduced vowels, and length shown by doubling — so reading is decoding, not memorising.
- The Eight VowelsA1 — Finnish has eight pure vowel phonemes — a e i o u y ä ö — grouped into back, front and neutral, and that same eight-way inventory is the engine of vowel harmony.