--- title: "mun" book_form: "minun" translation: "My. Mine." type: "word" category: "puhekieli" url: "https://finnishirl.com/words/mun" canonical: "https://finnishirl.com/words/mun" published: "2026-10-01" updated: "2026-10-01" author: "Andrey the Nomad" site: "Finnish IRL" license: "https://finnishirl.com/terms#ip" --- # mun URL: https://finnishirl.com/words/mun Book form (kirjakieli): minun Translation: My. Mine. Pronunciation: /mun/ Category: puhekieli Archetypes: spoken Region: Finland Register: neutral spoken Finnish Literal meaning: The genitive of the first person pronoun. Tone and safety: Safe with everyone in speech. Write minun. Published: 2026-10-01 Updated: 2026-10-01 Quick answer: - Mun means my, or mine. It is the spoken genitive of minä, written minun, and it sits in front of the thing owned. - Say the phrase your textbook drilled and a Finn hears you arguing. Minun kirjani is not the polite version of mun kirja - it is the contrastive one. - Finnish can mark ownership twice, once on the pronoun and once on the noun. Written Finnish leans on the ending, speech leans on the word, and nobody neutral uses both. - There are six of them: mun, sun, sen, meiän, teiän, niiden. What it means: - Put mun in front of the thing owned and the phrase is finished: mun kirja, mun avaimet, mun vuoro. - The complication is that Finnish has a second way of saying the same thing. A possessive suffix goes on the noun itself, so kirjani already means my book with no pronoun anywhere in sight. Finnish has both, and normally uses one at a time. Book form vs spoken form: - The two registers did not simply shorten the same phrase. They deleted opposite halves of it. - Written Finnish trusts the ending and throws away the pronoun. The Institute for the Languages of Finland gives the rule in one line: in the first and second person the suffix on its own is enough. Tarkastaja avasi laukkuni means the inspector opened my suitcase, and no word for my appears in it. - Speech did the reverse. It kept the pronoun, shortened it to mun, and dropped the ending. Mun laukku. - So the full textbook phrase minun laukkuni is not the neutral middle point between them. It is the marked, emphatic version, and the official guidance says so outright: the genitive pronoun in front of a suffix expresses contrast or carries stress. Their own example is Tämä on minun tablettini, ei sinun. This is my tablet, not yours. - So the sentence your course drilled has a tone it never mentioned. Say minun kirjani in an ordinary conversation and a Finn does not hear formality, they hear someone settling a dispute about whose book it is. How Finns use it: - Constantly, and almost always unstressed. Mun mielestä, in my opinion, is one of the phrases you will hear most often in a day of Finnish. Its written twin collapses into a single word, mielestäni. - The stress does the work here. Mun kirja said flatly is just my book. MUN kirja, with weight on the pronoun, is a claim. - The family is regular and small: mun, sun, sen, meiän, teiän, niiden. Learn the six and you have the spoken possessives. - Third person behaves differently and keeps its suffix better. You will hear both sen auto and hänen autonsa, and the second one is not odd the way minun kirjani is. Tone and safety: - Nothing to watch in speech. In a lease or a formal letter, minun kirjani is what the document expects and mun kirja would read like a text message. Common mistake: - Producing minun kirjani in conversation because it was on the vocabulary list. It is correct Finnish, and it sounds either read-aloud or argumentative. - Mixing the two systems at half strength. Mun kirjani takes the spoken pronoun and the written ending and belongs to neither register. - Assuming the ending is optional in writing too. It is not, and dropping it makes an email look sloppy. Examples: - Mun mielestä se oli hyvä. - I thought it was good. (written: Minun mielestäni se oli hyvä.) - Toi on mun. - That one's mine. (written: Tuo on minun.) - Missä mun avaimet on? - Where are my keys? (written: Missä minun avaimeni ovat?) Mini dialogue: A: Kenen toi on? B: Mun. A: Se on ollu tossa kaks viikkoo. B: Nii on. Se on silti MUN. FAQ: Q: What does mun mean in Finnish? A: My. It is the spoken form of minun and goes in front of the thing owned: mun kirja, my book. Q: Why is it mun kirja and not minun kirjani? A: Because speech marks ownership with the pronoun and writing marks it with the ending on the noun. Each register uses one of the two, and minun kirjani stacks both, which reads as emphasis. Q: Does minun kirjani sound wrong then? A: Not wrong, but marked. Official Finnish language guidance describes the pronoun in front of the suffix as contrastive or stressed, so in casual talk it can sound like you are insisting the book is yours. Q: Is mun informal? A: It is spoken, and spoken is not the same as informal. Finns say it to bosses, doctors and strangers. The written form is minun. Q: What is the difference between mun and mulla? A: Mun is my, ownership of a thing. Mulla is I have, from minulla, and it is how Finnish expresses having anything at all. Q: What are the other spoken possessives? A: Sun for sinun, sen for hänen, meiän for meidän, teiän for teidän, niiden for heidän. Related words: ma, sa, mulla-on, oon, ei-oo, onks, meen, mennaan Sources: - Omistusliitteet - possessive suffixes (Kielitoimiston ohjepankki, Kotimaisten kielten keskus): https://kielitoimistonohjepankki.fi/ohje/omistusliitteet/ - VISK § 716 - minä, sinä, hän, me, te, he (Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus): https://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=716 - VISK § 1298 - contexts without a possessive suffix (Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus): https://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=1298 - VISK § 95 - what possessive suffixes are (Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus): https://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=95 - VISK § 144 - osaatsä, emmä, kuulittekste (Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus): https://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=144 - Kielitoimiston sanakirja: minä (Kotimaisten kielten keskus): https://www.kielitoimistonsanakirja.fi/#/minä