---
title: "The 100 verbs that carry spoken Finnish"
description: "We counted verb lemmas in 326,946 tokens of Finnish conversation. Olla appears 22,833 times, the negative verb comes second, and familiar lemmas arrive disguised as oon, tiiä and lähen."
type: "article"
category: "spoken-finnish"
url: "https://finnishirl.com/blog/most-common-spoken-finnish-verbs"
canonical: "https://finnishirl.com/blog/most-common-spoken-finnish-verbs"
published: "2026-10-01"
updated: "2026-10-01"
author: "Andrey the Nomad"
site: "Finnish IRL"
license: "https://finnishirl.com/terms#ip"
---

# The 100 verbs that carry spoken Finnish
URL: https://finnishirl.com/blog/most-common-spoken-finnish-verbs
Date: 2026-10-01
Updated: 2026-10-01
Category: spoken-finnish
Keywords: most common finnish verbs, spoken finnish verbs, finnish verb frequency list, 100 finnish verbs, common verbs in finnish
Summary: We counted verb lemmas in 326,946 tokens of Finnish conversation. Olla appears 22,833 times, the negative verb comes second, and familiar lemmas arrive disguised as oon, tiiä and lähen.

Quick answer:
- Olla is the most frequent verb lemma in the 326,946-token Arkisyn corpus, with 22,833 tagged occurrences. The negative verb ei follows with 8,484; then tulla, voida, mennä, saada, sanoa, tietää, pitää and tehdä.
- The list groups inflected forms under lemmas: oon, oot, on, oli and olis count under olla. It ranks verbs in this corpus, not the surface forms a listener hears.
- Arkisyn is 29 hours of annotated everyday conversation, not a national sample. Close ranks and the four-way tie at the cutoff should not be treated as universal.
- Five of the top verbs are hard to hear because the spoken form hides the lemma: katsoa arrives as kattoo, tietää as tiiän, lähteä as lähen. Knowing the dictionary form is not the same as recognising it.

What you'll learn:
- Which 20 verb families buy the largest listening payoff in one real conversation corpus
- Why the negative verb belongs at number two instead of being discarded as grammar
- How ordinary spoken forms hide familiar dictionary lemmas
- Exactly how the count was made and where its precision ends

Body:

The top line is not close. Even after excluding the negative verb, <span lang="fi">olla</span> appears more than thirteen times as often as <span lang="fi">tulla</span>: 22,833 against 1,719.

We searched every Arkisyn token whose part-of-speech tag begins `v:`, grouped the results by lemma and ranked the counts.[^arkisyn][^api] That folds <span lang="fi">oon</span>, <span lang="fi">oot</span>, <span lang="fi">on</span>, <span lang="fi">oli</span> and <span lang="fi">olis</span> into the dictionary label <span lang="fi">olla</span>; the descriptive grammar documents why one Finnish verb supplies so many person, tense and mood forms.[^conjugation]

![A young man waiting beside a tram on a busy Finnish street](/images/words/optimized/blog-most-common-spoken-finnish-verbs-1-e9dda7f17a-1080.webp "A verb list built from conversation looks nothing like one built from writing, and this is where the conversation was recorded")

## The top 20: the verbs carrying the room

The gap between rank 1 and rank 3 is twelve times the gap between rank 3 and rank 100. The
top of this list is therefore not a ranking so much as one verb, one negator, and then
everything else. A lemma is also a filing label: the dictionary form is often the form you
will never hear, and what arrives in the room is an inflected, contracted version of it. That
is what the right-hand column shows.

| Rank | Lemma | Core meaning | Count | A form you may hear |
|---:|---|---|---:|---|
| 1 | olla | be | 22,833 | <span lang="fi">mä oon</span> |
| 2 | ei | not | 8,484 | <span lang="fi">en mä tiiä</span> |
| 3 | tulla | come, become | 1,719 | <span lang="fi">mä tuun</span> |
| 4 | voida | can, be able | 1,447 | <span lang="fi">voiks</span> |
| 5 | mennä | go | 1,337 | <span lang="fi">mä meen</span> |
| 6 | saada | get, may | 1,262 | <span lang="fi">saanks</span> |
| 7 | sanoa | say | 1,116 | <span lang="fi">se sano</span> |
| 8 | tietää | know | 1,104 | <span lang="fi">mä tiiän</span> |
| 9 | pitää | hold; must; like | 1,001 | <span lang="fi">mun pitää</span> |
| 10 | tehdä | do, make | 842 | <span lang="fi">mitä sä teet?</span> |
| 11 | käydä | visit; happen | 689 | <span lang="fi">mä käyn kaupas</span> |
| 12 | katsoa | look, watch | 688 | <span lang="fi">katotaan</span> |
| 13 | ottaa | take | 681 | <span lang="fi">mä otan</span> |
| 14 | lähteä | leave, set off | 519 | <span lang="fi">mä lähen</span> |
| 15 | laittaa | put, make, send | 486 | <span lang="fi">laita viesti</span> |
| 16 | nähdä | see | 440 | <span lang="fi">nähään</span> |
| 17 | haluta | want | 431 | <span lang="fi">haluuks</span> |
| 18 | ajatella | think | 426 | <span lang="fi">mä ajattelin</span> |
| 19 | muistaa | remember | 418 | <span lang="fi">muistat sä?</span> |
| 20 | päästä | get to; get away | 306 | <span lang="fi">pääseks?</span> |

<span lang="fi">Pitää</span> alone can hold an object, express obligation or mean liking something, depending on its frame. A learner who knows only "hold" knows its least useful conversational life.

## Number two is an entire negative verb

![Writer Henrik Tikkanen talking with his family by the water in 1966](/images/words/optimized/blog-most-common-spoken-finnish-verbs-2-606fbe1607-1080.webp "Ordinary verbs repeat because family conversation repeats ordinary actions")

Finnish grammars classify <span lang="fi">ei</span> as a verb because it inflects for person.[^negative]

| Person | Standard form | Ordinary speech |
|---|---|---|
| I | <span lang="fi">en tiedä</span> | <span lang="fi">en tiiä</span> |
| you | <span lang="fi">et tiedä</span> | <span lang="fi">et sä tiiä</span> |
| we | <span lang="fi">emme tiedä</span> | <span lang="fi">ei me tiedetä</span> |

Discarding <span lang="fi">ei</span> as a grammatical nuisance would erase 13.5% of the 62,913 verb-tagged hits returned by this query. For a listener, <span lang="fi">en</span>, <span lang="fi">et</span> and <span lang="fi">ei</span> are not decoration: they reverse the clause.

<div id="midpost-newsletter-slot"></div>

## 21-100: the full count

The ordering inside this table is much softer than the ordering above it. It opens at 297 and
closes at 47, so rank 90 and rank 100 are ten places and seven occurrences apart. A different
set of recorded conversations would reshuffle that stretch and leave the top twenty exactly
where it is. Read this half as a set of verbs to know, not as a league table.

What it does show is how quickly Finnish conversation stops needing new verbs. Ninety-nine
lemmas after <span lang="fi">olla</span>, the counts are already low enough that a single
talkative participant could have supplied them on their own.

| # | Verb | Core meaning | Count |
|---:|---|---|---:|
| 21 | puhua | speak | 297 |
| 22 | syödä | eat | 294 |
| 23 | näyttää | show; look/seem | 280 |
| 24 | ostaa | buy | 271 |
| 25 | tarvita | need | 267 |
| 26 | soittaa | call; play an instrument | 262 |
| 27 | ruveta | begin doing | 257 |
| 28 | lukea | read; study | 242 |
| 29 | antaa | give; let | 225 |
| 30 | jäädä | stay; be left; miss transport | 222 |
| 31 | täytyä | have to | 217 |
| 32 | alkaa | begin | 201 |
| 33 | tuntea | know a person; feel | 179 |
| 34 | hakea | fetch; apply for | 170 |
| 35 | osata | know how to | 164 |
| 36 | miettiä | think over | 163 |
| 37 | viedä | take away | 161 |
| 38 | maksaa | pay; cost | 160 |
| 39 | kertoa | tell | 158 |
| 40 | luulla | suppose, mistakenly think | 154 |
| 41 | kuulla | hear | 150 |
| 42 | tykätä | like | 148 |
| 43 | pistää | put; make; jab | 146 |
| 44 | kirjoittaa | write | 145 |
| 45 | pystyä | be able to | 141 |
| 46 | kysyä | ask | 140 |
| 47 | yrittää | try | 125 |
| 48 | tuntua | feel, seem | 123 |
| 49 | ajaa | drive | 120 |
| 50 | heittää | throw; crack a remark | 118 |
| 51 | kuulua | be heard; belong | 118 |
| 52 | jaksaa | have the energy | 114 |
| 53 | istua | sit | 113 |
| 54 | asua | live, reside | 105 |
| 55 | joutua | end up; have to | 105 |
| 56 | vetää | pull; run; consume | 102 |
| 57 | meinata | intend; almost happen | 99 |
| 58 | odottaa | wait; expect | 99 |
| 59 | sopia | fit; suit; agree | 98 |
| 60 | juoda | drink | 91 |
| 61 | näkyä | be visible; show | 89 |
| 62 | tuoda | bring | 88 |
| 63 | kannattaa | be worth doing; support | 86 |
| 64 | ymmärtää | understand | 85 |
| 65 | huomata | notice | 83 |
| 66 | kuolla | die | 83 |
| 67 | käyttää | use | 83 |
| 68 | tajuta | realise, get it | 82 |
| 69 | muuttaa | move; change something | 81 |
| 70 | tapahtua | happen | 75 |
| 71 | toimia | work, function; act | 74 |
| 72 | löytää | find | 73 |
| 73 | nukkua | sleep | 72 |
| 74 | taitaa | probably; be skilled at | 72 |
| 75 | katsella | watch, look around | 71 |
| 76 | jättää | leave something; abandon | 70 |
| 77 | keksiä | invent; figure out | 70 |
| 78 | kuunnella | listen | 69 |
| 79 | loppua | end, run out | 67 |
| 80 | hoitaa | handle; take care of | 65 |
| 81 | myydä | sell | 62 |
| 82 | uskoa | believe | 62 |
| 83 | ehtiä | have time; make it in time | 61 |
| 84 | kävellä | walk | 61 |
| 85 | täyttää | fill; turn an age | 58 |
| 86 | vaihtaa | change, exchange | 58 |
| 87 | pelata | play a game | 57 |
| 88 | kokeilla | try, test | 55 |
| 89 | saattaa | may; escort | 55 |
| 90 | lähettää | send | 54 |
| 91 | vastata | answer; correspond | 54 |
| 92 | viitsiä | feel willing/bothered | 54 |
| 93 | tarkoittaa | mean, intend | 53 |
| 94 | soitella | call/play casually or repeatedly | 51 |
| 95 | leikata | cut | 50 |
| 96 | lopettaa | stop, finish | 49 |
| 97 | selittää | explain | 49 |
| 98 | panna | put; set | 48 |
| 99 | aloittaa | start something | 47 |
| 100 | elää | live, be alive | 47 |

Equal counts are alphabetised. That is why <span lang="fi">aloittaa</span> and <span lang="fi">elää</span> occupy the last two displayed slots while <span lang="fi">löytyä</span> and <span lang="fi">syntyä</span>, also on 47, fall outside. The "top 100" has a hard edge the data does not.

## Five verbs that disguise themselves in the room

![Josephine Baker speaking with reporters in Helsinki in 1972](/images/words/optimized/blog-most-common-spoken-finnish-verbs-3-6129ee44ed-1080.webp "The lemma stays tidy in a table; speakers supply tense, person and register")

**<span lang="fi">Katsoa → kattoo / kato / katotaan.</span>** <span lang="fi">Katotaan</span> can mean "we'll see", including the socially useful version that schedules nothing.

**<span lang="fi">Tietää → tiiän / tiiä.</span>** <span lang="fi">En mä tiiä</span> may express uncertainty or buy a moment while the speaker thinks.

**<span lang="fi">Lähteä → lähtee / lähen.</span>** <span lang="fi">Mä lähen</span> is "I'm leaving"; <span lang="fi">Lähetäänkö?</span> is "shall we go?" The <span lang="fi">d</span> in standard <span lang="fi">lähden</span> and <span lang="fi">lähdetään</span> disappears in these common southern forms.

**<span lang="fi">Laittaa.</span>** It puts dinner on, sends a message, switches the sauna heater on and makes coffee. Translate the scene, not the lemma.

**<span lang="fi">Jaksaa.</span>** Dictionaries offer "have the strength". At 22:40, <span lang="fi">Mä en jaksa</span> often means "I don't have it in me" or "I can't be bothered", not a medical report.

## Method, so the list can be challenged

![Pedestrians crossing a busy street in central Helsinki](/images/words/optimized/blog-most-common-spoken-finnish-verbs-4-af71b228b5-1080.webp "Go, come, leave, bring and fetch: movement verbs dominate the top twenty because most of what people report is somebody going somewhere")

The reproducible query is Korp `command=count`, corpus `ARKISYN`, CQP `[pos="v:.*"]`, grouped by `lemma`. We sorted absolute counts descending and ties alphabetically.[^api] The query matches the two clean verb tags, `v:o` and `v:neg`. Eight tokens with mixed tags such as `adv v:neg` are excluded, so <span lang="fi">ei</span> is 8,484 rather than all 8,492 tokens whose annotation contains `v:neg`.

The University of Turku describes the resource as 29 hours and 26 texts of everyday conversation, with lemma, part-of-speech, morphology and syntax annotation.[^project] Korp's live `Size` includes 326,946 tokens of every kind. Its guide warns that linguistic annotation can contain errors.[^guide]

A larger resource, Lahjoita puhetta, gathered roughly 3,600 hours from more than 20,000 people across Finland, but scale alone does not produce a comparable hand-checkable lemma table.[^donate] This ranking is therefore strongest at the top. Start by recognising the spoken forms beside the top 20. Treat the lower ranks as a lookup list: this 29-hour sample cannot make rank 74 meaningfully more important than rank 75.

[^arkisyn]: [Arkisyn](https://www.kielipankki.fi/corpora/arkisyn/), The Language Bank of Finland. Corpus scope and access.
[^project]: [ArkiSyn project and dataset details](https://www.utu.fi/en/university/faculty-of-humanities/school-of-languages-and-translation-studies/research/utu-digilang/arkisyn-database-of-finnish-conversational-discourse), University of Turku.
[^api]: [Korp API](https://www.kielipankki.fi/support/korpapi/), The Language Bank of Finland. Grouped frequency queries.
[^guide]: [Korp user guide](https://www.kielipankki.fi/support/korp/), The Language Bank of Finland. Annotation limitations.
[^negative]: [Iso suomen kielioppi §108](https://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=108), Institute for the Languages of Finland. The Finnish negative verb.
[^conjugation]: [Iso suomen kielioppi §105](https://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=105), Institute for the Languages of Finland. Finnish verb inflection.
[^donate]: [Lahjoita puhetta - a large-scale corpus of spoken Finnish](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-022-09606-3), *Language Resources and Evaluation*.

FAQ:
Q: What is the most common Finnish verb?
A: Olla, 'to be'. It had 22,833 tagged occurrences in our Arkisyn query, more than thirteen times the count of third-place tulla.

Q: Why is ei included as a verb?
A: Finnish negation uses a negative verb that agrees with person: en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät. Arkisyn lemmatises these forms as ei.

Q: Are these the 100 most common verbs in all Finnish?
A: No. These are the first 100 rows after sorting Arkisyn's verb-tagged lemma counts. Four lemmas tie on 47 at the cutoff, so the final two displayed entries are alphabetical, not more frequent.

Q: Why do the words I hear not look like the list?
A: A lemma is a dictionary label. In speech olla appears as oon, oot, on, ollaan, oli and olis; mennä appears as meen, meet, menee and mennään.

Q: Should I memorise all 100 in order?
A: No. Recognise the top 20 across several forms, then use the rest as a listening checklist. Rank 74 versus 75 is not a useful learning distinction here.

Q: Why are some verbs tied?
A: They occurred the same number of times. We break ties alphabetically only to keep the table deterministic; tied verbs are equally frequent.

Q: Does the list include colloquial verbs?
A: Yes. Tykätä, pistää, meinata, tajuta, jaksaa and viitsiä all make the top 100. The table uses dictionary lemmas while the examples show spoken forms.

Sources:
- Arkisyn: A morphosyntactically coded database of conversational Finnish: https://www.kielipankki.fi/corpora/arkisyn/
- ArkiSyn project and dataset details: https://www.utu.fi/en/university/faculty-of-humanities/school-of-languages-and-translation-studies/research/utu-digilang/arkisyn-database-of-finnish-conversational-discourse
- Korp API: https://www.kielipankki.fi/support/korpapi/
- Korp user guide: https://www.kielipankki.fi/support/korp/
- Verbien taivutus: https://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=105
- Kieltoverbi: https://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=108
- Lahjoita puhetta - a large-scale corpus of spoken Finnish: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-022-09606-3

Related words: ei