96 lessons, Beginner (A1) to Upper intermediate (B2)
Learn Finnish in short chat lessons
Finnish is where Vocabbie went furthest, because it needed it: fifteen noun cases and few words an English speaker can guess. The course runs 96 lessons, from beginner to upper intermediate, written by hand by a founder who moved to Finland and learned Finnish as an adult.
What makes Finnish hard?
Finnish words change shape. A noun takes a case ending for in, from, to and on (talossa, kaupasta, kotiin, kadulla), and the stem itself often shifts when it does: katu becomes kadulla. This is consonant gradation, and most courses mention it once and move on. Vocabbie gives it its own lessons, and the reply under each answer says why the word changed.
How the course is built
Each lesson is a short scene in a chat: a few lines of Finnish, then a question. New words show up on cards first, and the words you miss come back sooner. One story runs through the beginner lessons, in a café in the rain, so the words come with people and places attached.
Who it is for
People moving to Finland, people with a Finnish partner or family, and anyone who started on another app and stalled at the cases. It teaches standard written Finnish, the form on signs, in letters and in the news, and points out where spoken Finnish differs.
Variety taught: Standard written Finnish, as it is written and read in Helsinki.
Every lesson in the course
Beginner (A1), 17 lessons
Say who you are
Greet someone and say who you are.
Who is that?
Say who someone else is.
Yksi, kaksi, kolme
Count to three, and say how many are here.
It, not he.
Ask about a thing, not a person.
Long and short
Hear the extra letter that changes the word.
Where are you from?
Say which country you are from and ask someone else.
a, o, u or ä, ö, y
Choose the right shape of an ending.
Viikonpäivät
Say what day it is.
I speak Finnish
Say which languages you speak.
No
Say what you do not do.
Where things are
Say where something is.
The letter that changes inside
Read a word whose middle changes when an ending arrives.
From and to
Say where you are going and where you came from.
Coffee, please
Order a drink.
Minulla on
Say what you have.
Perhe
Say who is in your family.
Vuodenajat
Say what the weather is and which season it is.
Elementary (A2), 30 lessons
What happened at the airport
Talk about a past trip using the Finnish past tense.
Running late and finding things
Say you're staying, finding, missing, or making it, with the right case.
Let's go! And what day is it?
Suggest 'let's do this,' and say what day something's happening.
Shopping for the trip
Send greetings from wherever you are, and handle a tricky group of nouns.
Picking the right object
Pick the right object ending in a positive sentence, and nail every negative.
I have to call the doctor
Say what you have to do.
The patient with the burning forehead
Connect two ideas with 'which,' and compare how you feel now versus usually.
At the doctor's
Handle a full conversation at the doctor's, symptoms and all.
Currently doing something, presumably in nature
Say what you're in the middle of doing right now.
Coming from doing things
Say what you just finished doing.
Fires, darkness, and subordinate clauses
Talk about lighting a fire, the weather turning, and everyday cottage life.
Have you been to the gym?
Say whether you have, or haven't, done something, in the Finnish perfect tense.
Tullut, noussut, purrut: the irregular participles
Say what's already happened, even for Finnish's trickiest verb stems.
That sounds good
Describe how something felt, sounded, or looked, and say you're into it.
A run, or the run?
Know exactly which ending an object needs, every time.
I've lived here five years already
Talk about what you've done, or haven't, using the Finnish perfect tense.
Someone has been here
Say 'someone,' 'something,' 'nobody,' or 'nothing' with offices and officials.
I lived, I have lived
Tell which past tense a sentence needs, just from the context.
Getting things done at Kela
Handle a real call to Kela, the bank, or a government office.
Had Already Done It (Pluskvamperfekti)
Say what had already happened before something else did.
Big Feelings, Big Nouns (-uus/-yys/-vuus/-vyys)
Turn everyday adjectives into abstract nouns.
It Is Mine (Possessive Suffixes)
Say 'my,' 'your,' or 'their' by changing the noun itself, not the adjective.
Hard Consonants in Soft Places
Get consonant changes right while talking weddings and 'my' this-and-that.
Many jobs, many interviews
Talk about companies, interviews, and job applications in the plural.
Long words in the plural
Pluralize trainings, projects, and interviews, and talk about where things go.
Who, which, and what to say after them
Talk about 'these,' 'those,' and multiple things at once, with matching verbs.
Plural everything: i-monikko in the shops
Talk about several shops, shelves, or items, wherever they are.
Cheaper, cheapest: comparing prices
Compare prices and quality, better versus best.
Verb rektio: what the verb demands
Know which case to use after verbs like 'like,' 'talk about,' or 'pay for.'
käydä, viihtyä, and the alkaa vs aloittaa trap
Say you visited or enjoyed a place, and start doing something, not just a thing.
Intermediate (B1), 25 lessons
What would you do if...?
Talk about hypothetical situations and make requests more politely.
That should have been done
Talk about things that could have happened, but didn't.
Unemployed, happy, quickly
Describe things with new adjectives, and turn them into adverbs on the fly.
What would you do if you won the lottery?
Put this chapter's hypotheticals, regrets, and new adjectives into conversation.
Nobody did it
Describe what happens without saying who did it, Finnish passive style.
It annoys me
Say what's annoying you, and talk in general terms the way Finns actually speak.
Who does it, and how many
Name people by what they do, and count more than one of anything.
What people did (and who did it is none of your business)
Talk about historical events without naming who was responsible.
Has been done, had been done
Talk about things that had already happened, at different points in the past.
Verbs that need a push (and nouns that flip their lid)
Know when a verb needs an object, and handle a tricky group of nouns correctly.
Kuinka kauan? Two endings, one answer
Answer 'how long?' the right way, whether something's finished or still going.
Saying what you think
Share your opinions and back them up with a few handy little words.
Mentäisiin, the passive conditional
Make casual 'let's' suggestions, and talk about what would have happened.
Being things: the essive
Describe a role, state, or moment in time, like 'as a child' or 'on Monday.'
Becoming things: the translative
Talk about becoming something, or changing state.
Without even trying: -matta/-mättä
Say someone did one thing without doing another.
The tired man and the fallen tree
Describe a noun by what already happened to it.
She said she was coming
Report what someone said or planned to do.
She said she had been there
Report what already happened, using the right reported-speech forms.
The done deal: passive past participle (-tu/-ty)
Describe something by what's been done to it, handy for talking renovations.
Happening vs. to be done: -va/-vä and -tava/-tävä
Talk about what's happening now, versus what needs to be done.
Made by someone: agent participle (-ma/-mä) and the full set
Say who's doing something, and tell apart Finnish's four participle forms.
While doing things: the -essa/-essä construction
Describe two things happening at the same time.
After doing things: -tua/-tyä, and the art of doing one thing at a time
Say what happened right before something else, and describe general activities.
The neighbour who, the thing that: relative clauses with joka and mikä
Connect ideas with 'which' and 'that,' Finnish style.
Upper intermediate (B2), 24 lessons
Probably: the potential mood
Hedge a claim the way Finnish news and gossip do, with the potential mood.
lienee and the negative potential
Sound cautious and non-committal, Finnish-style, even with irregular verbs.
Potential in questions, headlines, and rumour
Ask a hedged question and make sense of speculative Finnish headlines.
Going somewhere to do something
Say you're going somewhere to do something.
By doing, without doing
Say how you did something, or that you did it without doing something else.
On the verge, and putting it all together
Say someone's about to do something, and pick the right verb form every time.
Making people laugh (and sleepy)
Say you made someone feel or do something, or had a job done for you.
Pottering, wandering, doing it over and over
Talk about doing something on and off, the casual way Finns phrase it.
The door opened, by itself
Describe something changing on its own, or doing something to yourself.
The abstract noun factory
Turn everyday words into abstract nouns for news, complaints, and interviews.
People and places from thin air
Name people by their job and places by what happens there.
Collectives, cities, and who lives there
Name a group of things, a resident, or a type of person, in one word.
Rektio I: elative and illative
Know which case a verb wants for coming from or going into somewhere.
Rektio II: partitive, ablative, and allative
Pick the case a verb demands, whether it's about, from, or to someone.
Adjective rektio and full kertaus
Pair adjectives with the case they call for, and nail every verb-case pairing.
Jotta and vaikka: purpose and pushback
Say why you're doing something, and concede a point even hypothetically.
Conditions with teeth: jollei, mikäli, kunhan
Set a condition, formally or casually, in natural Finnish.
Time is a subordinate clause
Put events in order, precisely, using Finnish's time conjunctions.
She said that, reported statements
Report what someone said, without shifting the tense the way English would.
The compact way, referatiivirakenne and indirect questions
Turn a direct quote or question into reported speech, the compact Finnish way.
Asking and ordering, reported requests and commands
Report a request or a command, and know which form each one needs.
Shared secrets: -han/-hän and -pa/-pä
Add the little particles that soften a statement or give it some punch.
-kin, -kaan/-kään, and the question particle -ko/-kö
Say 'also,' 'not even,' or turn a statement into a wondering question.
Register: kirjakieli vs puhekieli, and particles in the wild
Switch between textbook Finnish and how people actually talk, particles and all.