Permission verbs (antaa, sallia)

Navigating digital privacy requires knowing how to grant or deny permissions. In Finnish, expressing that you let or allow someone (or an app) to do something uses a very specific sentence structure.

Permission Verbs: antaa and sallia

To express authorization, use the verbs antaa (to let) or sallia (to allow).

When you say "I let the app use my data", Finnish treats "the app" as the subject of the action "use". To build this structure in Finnish:

1. Conjugate your permission verb (antaa or sallia).
2. Put the entity receiving permission in the genitive case (ending in -n).
3. Put the action they are allowed to perform in the first infinitive (the standard dictionary form).

Let's see this in action with antaa:

Here is the exact same structure using sallia instead:

Everyday Digital Permissions

This formula — Permission verb + Genitive + 1st Infinitive — remains exactly the same whether you are talking about websites, browsers, or phone apps.

Denying Permission

To deny authorization, simply negate the main permission verb (antaa or sallia). The rest of the structure (genitive + infinitive) does not change, even in negative commands or statements.

As you manage your data security (tietoturva), you will see this grammatical construction frequently used to describe what your settings control.