Answering and talking on the phone in Finnish can be immensely difficult as a non-native speaker. The lack of visual clues makes understanding the other person challenging. This article contains phrases you might need while talking on the phone.

If you’re looking for basic telephone related words, you can find more vocabulary in the basic article about telephones.

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1. Phases of a phone call
   1. Answering the phone
   2. Introducing yourself
   3. Explaining why you’re calling
   4. Ending a phone call
      1. with someone you know
      2. in which you asked for information
2. Calling family and friends
3. Phone numbers
4. Call me!
5. Missed calls
6. Availability
7. Telemarketer
8. Problems in phone calls
9. Business calls

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1. Phases of a Phone Call

1.1. Answering the Phone

The way people answer the phone often depends on who’s calling.

Generally, people answer the phone by saying their name. Depending on the caller, they might say their full name (“Maija Martila”), or just their first name (“Maija”). Some people always reply by saying their last name (“Martila”). If the caller is a family member or friend, the call could also be answered by saying “haloo“, “moi“, “terve“, “noh” or “noni“.

If answering the phone at work, it’s common to answer by saying the name of your work place and a greeting (“Nekalan kirjasto, hyvää päivää“). Also common is saying the name of your company and then your own name (“Nekalan kirjasto, Maija Martila“). Most work places have some kind of etiquette in place as to how you’re supposed to answer the phone.

1.2. Introducing Yourself

When calling someone, you of course start by introducing yourself. Depending on who you’re calling, you do so with your whole name or just your first name. It’s also fairly common in Finland to reply with your last name in the genitive case first. For example, a woman called Sari with the last name Korhonen could answer either by saying “Sari Korhonen tässä hei” or “Korhosen Sari tässä hei“.

Generally, your first sentence when introducing yourself will contain either the word tässä or täällä. Both of these mean “here”. A greeting is usually also present in this sentence (such as hei or moi). So we get, for example, “Matti täällä hei“.

If the caller is a familiar person, this greeting will generally be responded to with the word “no“, a greeting word and maybe the caller’s name. The word order of these elements is fairly free. When the caller is not someone you know, “no” is generally not included. Below are some examples. The first group are situations where Maija and Antti are friends, while in the second group, they don’t know one another

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1.3. Explaining Why You’re Calling

Because you can call people for hundreds of different reasons, it’s hard to list phrases here that would be useful for most people. However, there are a few phrases that very often appear in the same sentences as the previous phrases. These are quite advanced sentences.

These phrases are generally followed by a question, as you can see from the following full sentences:

1.4. Ending a Phone Call

Ending a call in Finnish can be difficult if you’re not yet able to pick up the cues that indicate that a conversation is coming to an end. Be aware that expressions like noh or no niin can be used by a Finn to show that they want to end the conversation. This isn’t always the case, however, because no niin has many other functions as well. At least it is a good idea to keep your ears open for these words to avoid awkward conversations.

1.4.1. Ending a phone call with someone you know

In addition to the more obscure noh, nonnih and noniin, there are also other phrases you could use to end the conversation.

1.4.2. Ending a call in which you asked for information

As the caller, it is your role to bring the conversation to an end once you know the information you’ve requested. You can do this by saying something like selvä or ok. The end of the call can also simply be initiated by saying kiitos. When you’ve called to get some information, the word kiitos is a sign for the other person in this type of call to reply with kiitos hei.

2. Calling family and friends

3. Phone numbers

4. Call me!

The following list is a mix of questions, orders and statements related to calling people. I’m including fairly many phrases which differ only in very minor ways.

5. Missed calls

6. Availability

7. Telemarketer

The problem with telemarketers (puhelinmyyjä) is that they generally talk really fast and try to catch your interest before you realize they’re trying to sell you something. That makes it hard to tell them apart from phone calls that are important to you.It might be a good idea to get a telemarketing ban (telemarkkinointikielto or mainoskielto). However, after a while, these bans tend to get canceled and you’ll get calls all over.

8. Problems in Phone Calls

Below, you can find some phrases that will help you when a problem presents itself in the phone call. Included are phrases when you can’t hear (#1), understand (#2) or recognize (#3) the caller’s voice. In addition, there are a copuple of phrases used when there are problems with the connection (#4).

9. Business calls

Read more elsewhere

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• Kielikello: Miten puhua puhelimessa

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These phrases should make talking on the phone in Finnish a little easier.