Finnish IRL
sä - an older woman behind a Finnish kiosk counter leaning forward and asking a young customer something directly, pointing with an open hand

sä

/sæ/

You (singular). Written sinä The polite version you are looking for does not exist

sinä on paper, sä out loud

Kirjakieli · written sinä
Puhekieli · spoken sä

One of the written-and-spoken pairs - every word on this site that exists in both forms is in that table, beside the change between them.

The same sentence, both ways
What you will hear What the book writes
Ootsä valmis? Oletko sinä valmis?
Onks sulla hetki? Onko sinulla hetki?
Mä soitan sulle huomenna. Minä soitan sinulle huomenna.

Quick answer

Sä is the spoken form of sinä, "you". Like mä, the grammar describes it as a neutral feature of speech rather than slang.

  • Finnish does have a formal address - teitittely, using te, but in speech it is rare. Where it survives in writing is narrower than people assume: banks, insurers and some legal correspondence. The tax office and Kela address you as sä as a matter of policy.
  • Coming from Spanish, German or French, the instinct to reach for a polite form is the thing to unlearn. Sä to a stranger is normal.

What sä means

Sä is you, singular, to one person. It is the counterpart of mä and behaves identically: unstressed, short, and glued onto the verb in fast speech.

Why sinä became sä

Sinä is written; sä is spoken. The comprehensive grammar lists both, along with the regional sie and sää, and calls the short mä ~ sä pair a neutral feature of spoken language.

The related forms follow: sun for sinun (your), sulla for sinulla (you have), sut for sinut (you, object).

The bigger point is what is not there. Finnish has te for formal address, and the grammar covers it, but in practice teitittely is confined to very formal service situations, some official correspondence, and speaking to people of considerable age. There is no everyday polite pronoun to get wrong.

The rule behind sä

The change in sä is not a one-off. It is one of the regular changes between written and spoken Finnish, and it applies well beyond this word.

Written Spoken What changed
Writtensinä Spokensä What changedThe first syllable goes. The regional forms sie and sää belong to the same slot.
Writtensinun Spokensun What changedYour. Sun kirja, your book.
Writtensinulla Spokensulla What changedYou have, from the adessive: onks sulla.
Writtensinut Spokensut What changedYou, as an object.
Writtenmenetkö sinä Spokenmeetsä What changedIn a question the pronoun stops being a word and sticks to the back of the verb.

How Finns actually use sä

It attaches to verbs and disappears. Ootsä valmis, tuutsä, meetsä, oonks mä - the pronoun becomes part of the verb, which is why a question comes at you as one word.

Finnish also uses sinä generically, the way English uses "you" for people in general: sä et voi tietää etukäteen, "you can't know in advance". More characteristically it drops the pronoun altogether - ei voi tietää etukäteen, which is the zero person, and it is everywhere.

Where you will still meet teitittely: letters from a bank or an insurer, some legal correspondence, and speech directed at someone considerably older. Not from the state - Vero and Kela sinuttelevat by policy. Being teititelty yourself usually means someone has decided you are older than you are.

The more useful thing is that Finnish often avoids the choice entirely. Service language runs on impersonal and passive formulas with no pronoun in them at all: Mitä saisi olla? - what would you like. Otetaanko tästä? - shall we take this one. Onko kanta-asiakaskorttia? - do you have a loyalty card. You can be completely polite without ever picking between sä and te, and this is what a learner from Spanish or French actually needs.

sä in a sentence

  • Ootsä valmis? Are you ready? · written: Oletko sinä valmis?
  • Onks sulla hetki? Do you have a moment? · written: Onko sinulla hetki?
  • Mä soitan sulle huomenna. I'll call you tomorrow. · written: Minä soitan sinulle huomenna.
sä - two men in towels on an apartment sauna bench, the younger one turning to ask the older one something
There is no polite second person waiting behind it. This is it.

sä in a conversation

Tuutsä mukaan?
Joo, mä tuun. Monelt?
Seittemält.
Sopii.

The mistake everyone makes with sä

Importing a tú/usted axis. Learners from those languages often assume sä is impolite and sinä is the polite version. They are the same word in different registers; neither is the polite form.

Failing to hear sä once it has fused. Tiiätsä is tiedätkö sinä. If the sentence sounds like one long word, the pronoun is in there.

Questions people ask about sä

What does sä mean in Finnish?

You, singular. It is the spoken form of sinä.

Is sä rude or too casual?

Neither. The grammar treats mä and sä as neutral features of spoken Finnish. It is what people say to strangers, colleagues and shop staff.

Does Finnish have a polite form of you?

Yes - teitittely, using te - but it is rare and mostly ceremonial. There is no everyday polite pronoun the way Spanish has usted or French vous.

When should I use te in Finnish?

With someone considerably older whom you don't know, and in letters from banks, insurers or lawyers. Not from the state: Vero and Kela use sä. In casual speech it sounds stiff, and the better move is usually to sidestep the pronoun entirely - Mitä saisi olla?

What is sun?

The spoken form of sinun, "your". Sulla is sinulla, "you have", and sut is sinut.

Is sä correct Finnish?

Yes. Sä is the spoken form; sinä is the written one. Both are standard Finnish - they belong to different registers, and neither is a degraded version of the other.

mä - two people talking on the shore of an autumn lake beside a wooden jetty
mä written minä The word every textbook spells with three more letters
oon - a young woman on the phone in an office kitchen doorway saying where she is, coffee cup already in hand, melting snow on the ledge outside
oon written olen Someone rings to say where they are. This is the word you will miss
onks - a man leaning on a Finnish kiosk counter asking whether something is in, the older vendor already reaching under the counter
onks written onko Move the question letter one word to the left and you have asked something else
mun - a woman lifting her coat off the back of a café chair as an older man reaches for the same one, melting snow outside
mun written minun Say the phrase your textbook drilled and a Finn hears you arguing over whose book it is
ei oo - a shop assistant and a customer both shrugging in front of a half-empty shelf in a Finnish supermarket
ei oo written ei ole The sentence a shop assistant says to you, in the shape they say it
meen - a woman pulling her coat on in a dim Finnish hallway, half out of the door and calling back into the flat, snow outside
meen written menen In Finnish you do not get married - you go into marriages, and it is plural
mennään - two friends standing up from a café table at the same moment, one already pulling a coat on, melting snow outside the window
mennään written menemme "Let's go" and "we go" are the same word, and your textbook taught neither
mulla on - a woman holding up a loyalty card to show a Finnish shop cashier that she has one, bright spring daylight through the doors
mulla on written minulla on I'm hungry in Finnish is at me is a hunger, because the language never built a verb for have

Sources for sä

  1. VISK § 716 - minä, sinä, hän, me, te, he Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - Lists the monosyllabic variants and calls the short-vowel mä ~ sä a neutral, increasingly common feature of spoken Finnish.
  2. VISK § 144 - osaatsä, emmä, kuulittekste Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - Sä cliticises onto the verb, producing ootsä and tuutsä - documented, not careless.
  3. VISK § 1273 - te in formal address Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - Cross-referenced from § 716: when addressing formally, te refers to a single person.
  4. VISK § 717 - grammatical properties vs. reference to people Iso suomen kielioppi, Kotimaisten kielten keskus - The wider spoken pronoun system, including se used for people.
  5. Kielitoimiston sanakirja: sinä, te Kotimaisten kielten keskus

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