Finnish IRL
kiitos - a waitress setting a beer down for an older man on a summer lake terrace

kiitos

/ˈkiːtos/

Thanks. Thank you. Finnish has no word for please, and this is what fills the gap

Quick answer

Kiitos means thanks, and it is the word Finns attach to a request where English would use please.

  • Finnish has no single word for please. Politeness is carried by the conditional - saisinko, voisitko, haluaisin - plus kiitos.
  • Kiitos is not itself "please": it is thanks, placed where English puts please.

What kiitos means

Kiitos is thank you. Every course teaches it in the first hour, and that part is not the interesting part.

The interesting part is what it is doing at the end of a request. Kahvi, kiitos is "a coffee, thanks" - and it is how you ask for a coffee, because there is no separate word to put there.

Why kiitos changed

The word does not change between registers. What changes is what you put around it: kiitti among friends, kiitos paljon or kiitti vaan when you want to add weight.

Kiitos is often described online as meaning "please". It does not. It means thanks. It sits in the slot English fills with please, which is a different statement, and the difference shows the moment you try to build a polite sentence out of kiitos alone.

How Finns actually use kiitos

The real politeness in Finnish is grammatical, not lexical. The conditional - the -isi- forms - is what softens a request: saisinko ("could I have"), voisitko ("could you"), haluaisin ("I would like"). Haluan kahvia is a plain statement of want; haluaisin kahvia is a request. The comprehensive grammar treats the conditional in a question as a standard, conventionalised way of making a polite request.

So the full move is often both: the conditional does the softening and kiitos closes it. Saisinko yhden kahvin, kiitos.

It is also what many people say getting off a bus, though in Helsinki you leave by the rear doors, so it happens far more in smaller towns and on long-distance coaches than in the capital.

kiitos in a sentence

  • Kahvi, kiitos. A coffee, please.
  • Kiitti, moi! Thanks, bye! · written: Kiitos, hei.
  • Voisitko auttaa hetken? Could you help for a moment?
kiitos - a passenger stepping off a city bus into the snow as the driver looks on
Said on the way out, every single time.

kiitos in a conversation

Saisinko yhden kahvin?
Joo, tuleeko muuta?
Ei kiitos.
Neljä viiskyt.
Kiitos.

The mistake everyone makes with kiitos

Learning kiitos as "please" and then producing requests with no conditional in them. Anna se, kiitos is grammatical and lands as an instruction with a thank-you attached. Saisinko sen is a request.

Where you will actually hear kiitos

The whole scene: the shop , the health centre

Questions people ask about kiitos

What does kiitos mean?

Thank you. It is also the word Finns put at the end of a request, in the slot English fills with "please".

Is there a word for please in Finnish?

No single word. Politeness is carried by the conditional - saisinko, voisitko, haluaisin - and kiitos is attached to close the request.

How do you say thank you very much in Finnish?

Kiitos paljon, or kiitos oikein paljon if you want to weight it further. Among friends, kiitti or kiitti vaan.

How do you pronounce kiitos?

KEE-tos, stress on the first syllable. The double i is held roughly twice as long as a single one - kiitos, not kitos, which is a different sound entirely.

Do Finns say kiitos to the bus driver?

In smaller towns and on long-distance coaches, often - said over the shoulder without stopping. In Helsinki you exit by the rear doors, so it barely arises.

Is kiitos a bad word?

Always safe. Under-using it reads as cold; over-using it reads as nervous.

moi - a woman at a Finnish supermarket checkout giving the smallest possible nod to the man stepping into the queue behind her
moi Say it once and it is hello, say it twice and you are leaving
kippis - two women touching beer glasses across a table on a Finnish summer terrace, a lake and birches behind them in the late evening light
kippis The glass goes over your shoulder before the shot goes down
puhutko englantia - a young woman asking a halting question at a lit Finnish kiosk window in the snow, and getting the answer back without a pause
puhutko englantia The answer is yes, and that is the whole problem
anteeks - a young man squeezing past an older woman in a narrow Finnish supermarket aisle with one hand slightly raised, melting snow tracked across the floor
anteeks written anteeksi The most-used politeness word in the country, and the final letter falls off
mä tykkään susta - a couple sitting side by side on a jetty in the Finnish summer night, bare feet over the water, not looking at each other
mä tykkään susta written minä tykkään sinusta The sentence that does the work "I love you" does in English

Sources for kiitos

  1. VISK § 1662 - the conditional in a question: tulisitteko jo Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - A question with a conditional verb combines request with offer of choice; this is the conventionalised polite request.
  2. VISK § 1645 - what directives are Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - One speech function, many morphosyntactic means - which is why Finnish needs no dedicated please.
  3. Kohtelias kehotus tai pyyntö: kysymysmuoto Kielitoimiston ohjepankki, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - The official language-guidance entry on making a request in question form.
  4. Kielitoimiston sanakirja: kiitos Kotimaisten kielten keskus
  5. VISK § 1201 - answering with a verb or a particle Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - How Finnish answers are built, which is what ei kiitos and joo kiitos are doing.

Published Updated

More on this

30 Finnish phrases hiding in one cup of coffee
Ordering is the easy part. Then somebody says pannaan tippumaan 6 min read
Finnish has no word for please. It has six moves
Saisinko does the polite work. Pliis does the begging 7 min read
Yes, Finnish is related to Hungarian. It barely shows
A Finn understands no Hungarian. Estonian is the one that pays 9 min read
200 Finnish subtitle words. Mä is not one of them
570 million tokens, and mä is not in the top 200 16 min read