Translate Video to Finnish

What to expect when translating into Finnish

Finnish words grow long with case endings and compounds, so translated text is often longer than English in characters even with fewer words. Finnish has no grammatical gender and no articles, which removes some common translation errors.

The Finnish voice track

Outside children's programming, dubbing is uncommon in Finland, so for many adult audiences offer the subtitles alongside the voice.

Voice, MP4, subtitles and transcripts: 400 credits (40¢). Subtitles and transcripts only: 8 credits (0.8¢).

Finnish subtitles

Finland subtitles nearly all foreign TV, so Finnish viewers read quickly — but long compound words make lines wide, so split long cues if needed.

Finnish (Suomi) is written in the Latin alphabet.

Switch Full translation output off for subtitles only: 16 credits (1.6¢). If the video is already in Finnish, select Finnish as the language instead and the subtitles come back untranslated — see Finnish transcription.

Translating audio files into Finnish

Podcasts and recordings go through the audio translator, which returns a Finnish M4A and transcripts: 1,500 credits ($1.50) with voice, 30 credits (3¢) as text only.

Who translates into Finnish

Finnish is spoken in Finland. It's used by Nordic companies, Finnish public-sector and education bodies, and gaming and tech companies with Finnish users.

Case endings on names, brands and abbreviations

Finnish expresses with endings what English does with prepositions, and that includes names. "In YouTube" becomes YouTubessa, "in the EU" becomes EU:ssa, and "as a PDF" becomes PDF:nä. The colon before the ending after an abbreviation is standard Finnish spelling, and it is easy for machine output or a hurried editor to drop it or to put the ending in the wrong place.

Finnish place names also change their stem: Turku becomes Turussa, Helsinki becomes Helsingissä. Collect the names, brands and abbreviations in the translated subtitles and check each one once. If the translation sidestepped an ending by rewording a sentence awkwardly, a Finnish reviewer will usually prefer the inflected form.

Numbers take endings as well. "In the 2000s" is 2000-luvulla, "at half past two" is klo 14.30, and ordinals are written with a dot, as in 3. luokka for third grade. A figure that the speech recognition wrote as digits may arrive in the Finnish text without the ending the sentence needs, or with the ending attached the wrong way. Read every line containing a figure, date or time once, since these are also the lines viewers are most likely to act on.

Sinä, te or the passive

Finnish has a polite plural te, but modern marketing, apps, software and most training address the viewer as sinä. The polite form still appears in some official letters and when speaking to older audiences. English "you" doesn't tell the translation which you mean, so read the subtitles for switches between "sinä voit" and "te voitte" and settle on one.

Instructions often avoid the question entirely with the passive: "Tiedosto tallennetaan" (the file is saved) or "Valitaan asetukset". It reads neutrally and suits manuals and how-to videos, but a whole video in the passive can feel distant, so mix it with direct address in friendlier content.

Long words in subtitles and in the dub

Finnish compounds and endings make individual words long, and a short English line can become a Finnish line with three very long words. In the SRT, split long cues at clause boundaries and keep each line within what your player shows comfortably; subtitle segmentation explains where breaks read best. Never hyphenate a word across subtitle lines to make it fit.

The dub has the same pressure in time instead of space. In dub mode the voice is fitted to the original timing, and some Finnish lines are shortened so they don't overrun; the dub-mode subtitles match those shortened lines. If a viewer needs every detail, give them the full, unshortened translation from Download translation in the same run. Play the preview at normal speed to spot rushed lines, and read text expansion in translation for why this happens.

A Swedish version for Finland

Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish, and public bodies, universities and many companies publish in both. One job produces one target language, so a Swedish version is a second job with Swedish as the target; the Swedish video translator page covers what to check there. Finnish broadcasters have long shown Finnish and Swedish subtitles together on screen, and dual language subtitles explains how to combine two SRT files if you want the same.

Costing a university lecture

For lectures, subtitles in both national languages often serve students better than a dub, because students can pause and reread terms. A dub earns its cost for younger learners or for content watched without looking at the screen.

Finnish proofreading list

• Case endings on names, brands and abbreviations, with the colon after abbreviations.
• Place names with the right stem change.
• sinä, te or passive used deliberately and consistently.
• Long cues split at clause boundaries, with no hyphenated line breaks.
• Decimal comma, a space between thousands, dates as 1.10.2026, times as 14.30.
• ä and ö intact in the subtitle file.
• A Swedish version planned if the audience is in Finland's public or education sector.

Using the tool on this page

• The spoken language is detected automatically; you select the output language — the spoken language itself for an untranslated transcript, or another language for a translation. Files can be up to 2 hours long.
• Only the audio is sent for processing — the video stays on your device — and audio and text are deleted within 30 minutes of delivery (how files are protected).
• You can download a translated video that keeps your music and effects, the translated audio as M4A, a transcript and subtitles (SRT and VTT). Every output, step and limit is explained on the video translator page.