Read Your First Finnish Story

Quick facts about Finnish

Speakers

About 5 million native speakers: roughly 4.75 million in Finland (2023) and 200,000–250,000 in Sweden (2022).¹

Did you know?

Everyday spoken Finnish (puhekieli) differs noticeably from the written standard: minä olen (“I am”) is usually said mä oon, and olemme (“we are”) becomes me ollaan.²

The main challenge

Fifteen noun cases whose endings are regular, but consonant gradation changes the stem (katu “street” → kadulla “on the street”) and vowel harmony picks the ending's vowel (-ssa or -ssä).³

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_language
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquial_Finnish
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_grammar

About the Finnish language

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_language
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_grammar
3. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/languages_en

Finnish reading proficiency benchmarks (CEFR & YKI)

The Finnish National Agency for Education publishes YKI grades 1 to 6 as corresponding to CEFR A1 to C2. The YKI test has no grade below 1, so A0 is shown as Pre-A1. The column is a rough guide to reading level, not an official equivalence for Stichos texts.

Reference corpora

Finnish word-frequency work counts base forms (lemmas), because case endings, possessive suffixes and clitics give one word many written forms.¹

• A Frequency Dictionary of Finnish: Pauli Saukkonen and colleagues (Suomen kielen taajuussanasto, 1979) list about 10,000 of the most common Finnish words, alphabetically and by frequency, drawn from 1960s fiction and non-fiction, 1967 newspapers and magazines, and 1968–69 radio programmes. In every text type the three most frequent words are olla, ja and se.¹
• The Language Bank of Finland: Kielipankki, coordinated by the FIN-CLARIN consortium of Finnish universities and research organisations with CSC, offers text and speech corpora with search and analysis tools, free for researchers and students.²
• Register: Stichos writes Finnish readers in standard written Finnish (kirjakieli) at every level rather than colloquial spoken Finnish (puhekieli), and uses informal address (sinuttelu) unless a formal exchange is intended.

1. https://kotus.fi/sanakirjat/muita-sanakirjoja/taajuussanakirjat/
2. https://www.kielipankki.fi/language-bank/

Readability design principles

Finnish readability work runs from an early doctoral study of magazine articles to a national checklist for Easy Finnish.^1,2

• Wiio’s formulas: Osmo A. Wiio’s 1968 University of Tampere doctoral study, Readability, Comprehension and Readership, tested readability measures on Finnish magazine articles and related them to readership.²
• Easy Finnish Indicator: The Finnish Centre for Easy Language (Selkokeskus) scores whether a factual text qualifies as Easy Finnish (selkokieli). Version 2.0 (2022) has 96 criteria in four groups: the text as a whole, words, language structures, and layout and illustrations.¹
• Stichos: Stichos sets difficulty with level-by-level grammar rules and sentence-length limits rather than a single readability score.

1. https://selkokeskus.fi/in-english/easy-finnish/the-easy-finnish-indicator-2-0/
2. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2262466W/Readability_comprehension_and_readership

Script & grammar scaffolding

• Tenses and moods: A0 and A1 stay in the present (preesens), and plans are told in the present too (Huomenna tapaamme, “we’ll meet tomorrow”). A2 adds the past (imperfekti) and the perfect (perfekti). B1 brings the pluperfect, the conditional (konditionaali) and the passive. The potential mood (potentiaali) waits until C1.
• The partitive: At every level the object of an ongoing action takes the partitive, as in Anna juo kahvia (“Anna drinks coffee”), and a number above one takes the partitive singular: kaksi omenaa (“two apples”).
• Subjects: First- and second-person subjects may be dropped because the verb ending shows the person, but third-person subjects (hän, he, se, ne) are always written out.
• Commands: At A0, commands appear only in fixed formulas such as Ole hyvä (“here you are”). A1 allows five informal ones: katso, tule, ota, odota and istu. The negative imperative arrives at A2.

Related academic & framework resources

• YKI: Selecting the right test (Finnish National Agency for Education): The official description of the National Certificates of Language Proficiency, with basic, intermediate and advanced tests and grades 1 to 6 matched to CEFR A1 to C2.
• Kielipankki – The Language Bank of Finland: Text and speech corpora and tools for researchers, run by FIN-CLARIN and CSC.
• Taajuussanakirjat (Institute for the Languages of Finland): Kotus’s page on Finnish frequency dictionaries, including Saukkonen’s 1979 dictionary and a dialect frequency dictionary.
• The Easy Finnish Indicator 2.0 (Selkokeskus): The Finnish Centre for Easy Language’s 96-criterion tool for judging whether a text is Easy Finnish.
• Readability, Comprehension and Readership (Wiio, 1968): Osmo A. Wiio’s experimental study of the readability of Finnish magazine articles, Acta Universitatis Tamperensis.

Frequently asked questions

What writing system does Finnish use?

Latin alphabet, including ä and ö, with a largely phonemic spelling

Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?

Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.

Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?

Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.

Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?

Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.

Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?

Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.

How does word lookup work while reading?

Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.

Is the preview free, and what happens to my email?

Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.

Do stories include audio or narration?

Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).