This article deals with how to say nothing, nowhere and never in Finnish. This is a complicated topic!

If you’re a beginner, please don’t dive too deep into this article. You’re bound to get really confused because this topic requires you to know many aspects of grammar, such as the object, rections and sentence types. Even if you’re an intermediate learner and get confused, understand that that is normal in this situation. Some topics just are hard to grasp and I think this is one of them.

The original suggestion for this monster of an article came from Joachim on our Discord server (please join us and say hi!). What Joachim specifically asked for was an article on words such as “nothing, somewhere, anything, anytime”. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t what he was expecting, but it was a great suggestion. Thank you, Joachim!

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1. The Shortlist
2. Complications
   1. Problem 1: Word order
   2. Problem 2: Conjugating the negative verb
   3. Problem 3: Translating to/from English
3. Nothing – Ei mikään – Ei mitään
   1. “Nothing” as the object of the sentence: ei mitään
   2. “Nothing” as the subject of the sentence: mikään ei
   3. Cases where the context helps but translating doesn’t
4. Nowhere – Ei missään – Ei Mistään – Ei mihinkään
   1. Ei missään – “In” nowhere
   2. Ei mistään – From nowhere
   3. Ei mihinkään – Ei minnekään – To nowhere
5. Never – Ei koskaan – Ei milloinkaan – Ei ikinä
6. Nobody – Ei kukaan – Ei ketään – Ei kenelläkään
   1. “Nobody” as the subject of the sentence: kukaan ei
      
   2. “Nobody” as the object of the sentence: ei ketään
   3. Ei kenelläkään – Nobody has
   4. Ei keneltäkään – From nobody – Ei kenellekään – To nobody
7. More

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1. The Shortlist

2. Complications

Words like nothing, nowhere and never are one word in English, but in Finnish you will need two. You will be using the negative ei (conjugated if needed). As such, “nothing” will be [ei mitään].

2.1. Problem 1: Word order

The order of the elements that make up the words for “nothing”, “nowhere”, “never” etc. can differ depending on the sentence. This means that you will find both [ei mitään] and [mitään ei] as translations for “nothing”.

Word order is fairly free in Finnish, so Finns like to play around with changing it. However, there will be sentences where it is impossible to use some versions. As a learner of Finnish, it will take time for you to get a feel for when the word order can be reversed.

Because of that, all my examples and explanations below utilize the neutral word order. This is the word order that will be correct no matter what. In regular sentences and object sentences, the “ei” and the “mitään” will be on either side of the verb of the sentence. In existential sentences, you will start the sentence with “mitään ei“. I will be giving examples below.

2.2. Problem 2: Conjugating the negative verb

The negative verb “ei” gets conjugated. This means that it’s not enough to remember “ei missään” (nowhere). You have to also be able to conjugate the negative verb as the sentence requires. For example:

• “I don’t visit any place.” → En käy missään (paikassa).
• “We don’t visit any place.” → Emme käy missään (paikassa).
• “Don’t visit any place!” → Älä käy missään (paikassa).

You will occasionally hear people use the third person “ei” even when they mean “en”. This is okay in cases where you’re just answering a question. For example, the answer to the question “Missä kävitte?” (Where did you go) should be “Emme missään“, but you will generally hear “Ei missään” (Nowhere).

2.3. Problem 3: Translating to/from English

The Finnish system for these negative words is fairly logical once you get a feel for it. However, if you’re just starting out, you’re going to run into problems. The Finnish system doesn’t match up with the English one. Translating things straight from one language to another is rarely a good idea, and this is especially apparent with this topic.

Confusion is caused by many things. For one, English doesn’t have all of the cases that Finnish has. This results in confusion when “nowhere” gets translated as “ei missään“, “ei mistään” AND “ei mihinkään” depending on the context.

Additionally, the English system is a little complicated on its own. Cases where Finnish consistently uses “ei missään” will in English be expressed as “nowhere” or “(not) anywhere” (e.g. “nowhere to run” vs. “I don’t run anywhere“). I will be including examples of these different translations in the tables below.

3. Nothing – Ei mikään – Ei mitään

The English “nothing” is most often translated to Finnish with either [ei mikään] or [ei mitään]. The former is the basic form (from mikä), while the latter is the partitive case (from mitä).

Translating Finnish sentences with mikään or mitään will generally use the word “nothing”, but it’s also possible to have sentences that require “not anything” or “no” in English. More about those below.

3.1. “Nothing” as the object of the sentence: ei mitään

We will use [ei mitään] when the “nothing” refers to the object of the sentence. This is logical because the object of a negative sentence should always be written in the partitive (e.g. Syön omenan. En syö omenaa). Mitään is the partitive of mikään.

For example, the sentence “Haluan auton” (I want a car) will become “En halua autoa” (I don’t want a car), and “En halua mitään” (I don’t want anything).

The following table has both examples where ei mitään is translated as “nothing” and examples where you would use “(not) anything” in English. Finnish only has one way to express both of these.

3.2. “Nothing” as the subject of the sentence: Mikään ei

When we’re using “nothing” as the subject of our sentence, we will use [mikään ei]. This is much rarer than objects, but the examples below are pretty common. Notice how the “nothing” will be placed at the beginning of the phrase when it’s the subject of the sentence.

3.3. Cases where the context helps but translating doesn’t

Sometimes the word “no, nothing” is accompanied by another word (e.g. “nothing to say”, “no surprise”, “no sense”). In these cases, your “nothing” will be inflected in the same case as the word it’s attached to.

Unfortunately, in English, we will generally not use the word “nothing” in these cases. This might make it hard to see the similarities when you’re translating between Finnish and English.

4. Nowhere

“Nowhere” can be translated in three ways, because Finnish has the missä-mistä-mihin location cases. The word “nowhere” will inflect in those three case: ei missään (missä), ei mistään (mistä) and ei mihinkään (mihin).

4.1. Ei Missään – “In” Nowhere

[Ei missään] will be translated into English as both “nowhere” and as “not anywhere”, as you can see in the sentences below.

Word order can be problematic for learners of Finnish. As you can see below, in sentences with a subject, we will place the “ei missään” on both sides of the verb (#1). In contrast, existential sentences (#2), which just express that something wasn’t anywhere, will start the sentence with “missään ei“. Word order can (and will) be played with in Finnish, so this is not an absolute truth. It is, however, the neutral word order, which is correct in any case.

“Ei missään” can also be used as the English “any” in sentences where it’s connected to a noun. For example, ei missään kaupassa means “not in any store”.

Missään also appears in the phrases [ei missään tapauksessa], [ei missään nimessä] and [ei missään muualla], of which you can find examples in the next table.

4.2. Ei Mistään – From Nowhere

Generally, “ei mistään” gets translated as “nowhere”, “from nowhere” or “not anywhere”. However, the “ei mistään” form is often used because of verbs that require the mistä-form. For example, ostaa, löytää, puhua ja kiinnostua are all verbs that have a mistä-rection. This makes things tricky for learners of Finnish because English doesn’t have these rections (e.g. you don’t talk “from nothing” as in Finnish, but rather “about nothing”).

The word order is once again different in different sentences types. If there is a subject in the sentence, the “ei” and the “mistään” will be positioned on either side of the verb (#1). If it’s an existential sentence, we will generally start the sentence with “mistään ei“. This is the neutral word order, which can be played with. As a learner of Finnish, you should – especially in the beginning – stick to the neutral word order.

4.3. Ei Mihinkään – Ei Minnekään – To Nowhere

The words mihinkään and minnekään can be both used to mean “to nowhere”. From the examples below, it becomes clear that in English you will generally just use “nowhere” when translating. Finnish uses mihinkään with verbs that require the mihin–form. Some of these are very concrete (e.g. mennä, lähteä + mihin “go to“) (#1), and others are rections (#2). For example, the verbs johtaa and luottaa have a mihin-form rection.

5. Never – Ei koskaan – Ei milloinkaan – Ei ikinä

There are many ways to say “never” in Finnish: ei koskaan, ei milloinkaan and ei ikinä. All of them come with the negative verb. Of these, ei koskaan is the most neutral.

More than “nowhere” and “nothing”, we can play freely with the word order in “never” sentences. In this article, you can find the most neutral word order, which means the verb will generally be between the “ei” and the “koskaan“. However, I can immediately think of a few cases where a different word order sounds more natural (e.g. Emme koskaan suudelleet “We never kissed” rather than Emme suudelleet koskaan).

Sentences starting with “koskaan ei” are usually generic sentences, where the subject could be anyone.

Ikinä and koskaan can also be used in positive sentences to mean “ever”. For example “nuorin lottovoittaja ikinä” means “the youngest lottery winner ever”. Koskaan appears very often in perfect tense questions: “Oletko koskaan uinut avannossa?” means “Have you ever swum in a hole in the ice?” This is, however, not the topic of this article.

6. No one – Nobody – Ei kukaan – Ei ketään

As with mikään and mitään, the question word kuka can appear in the basic form (ei kukaan) and in the partitive (ei ketään). This is a cause for much confusion among learners of Finnish.

Unfortunately, kukaan and ketään are very complicated and there are lots of special situations where things don’t exactly go as you would expect. I’m only talking about the main rules in this article. Click on through if you want to read more about kuka and ketä elsewhere.

6.1. “Nobody” as the subject of the sentence: Kukaan ei

When we’re using “nobody” as the subject of our sentence, we will generally use [kukaan ei]. Notice how the “nobody” will be placed at the beginning of the phrase when it’s the subject of the sentence, which kind of makes the literal translation of Kukaan ei auta “nobody doesn’t help” (#1). In response to questions, we will reverse the word order (#2).

6.2. “Nobody” as the object of the sentence: ei ketään

We will use [ei ketään] when the “nobody” refers to the object of the sentence. This is logical because the object of a negative sentence should always be written in the partitive (e.g. Tapaan Maijan. En tapaa Maijaa.). Ketään is the partitive of kukaan.

The following table contains examples where ei ketään is translated both as “nobody” or “no one”, and examples where you would use “(not) anyone” in English. Finnish only has one way to express these.

6.3. Ei kenelläkään – Nobody has

The minulla on -sentence construction (“I have”) can of course also be made negative (“nobody has”). The most common way to say this is “ei kenelläkään“, but we can also use “ei kelläkään” or “ei kellään“. I suggest you start with the longest form, as it’s the default version.

As the answer to the question “who has”, we will use “ei kenelläkään“. However, in regular sentences we will more often than not start the sentence off with “kenelläkään ei” (nobody has). If you remember the type of sentences that come in the minulla on -sentence construction, this should not cause you too much trouble.

6.4. Ei keneltäkään – From nobody – Ei kenellekään – To nobody

When you receive something from someone, you use use the -lta-form (e.g. Keneltä sait sen? Sain sen Liisalta). In the negative, we will use “Ei keneltäkään” (not from anybody, from nobody) (#1).

Likewise, giving something to someone will require the –lle-form (e.g. Kenelle annoit sen? Annoin sen Liisalle). When made negative, we get “Ei kenellekään” (not to anybody, to nobody) (#2).

7. More

Is there more? Yes! There’s lots more. But I think perhaps this is enough for one article.

I’m sure this article has raised just as many questions for some of you as it has answered. I will leave this article where it is. I generally like to give all the information in one place, but sometimes things just get too complicated to do so. When I publish other articles about similar forms, I will link to them here.

Below, you can find another overview of these types of words:

That’s it for now for words like nothing, nowhere and never. I hope you learned something new.