3. The verb 'to speak'

As we learned earlier:
Minä olen I am
Sinä olet You are
Hän on He/she is

We also learned about nationalities. Now you know how to say:
Minä olen suomalainen. I am a Finn/ I am Finnish
Sinä olet japanilainen. You are Japanese.
Hän on meksikolainen. He/she is Mexican.

Olen egyptiläinen. I am Egyptian
Olet ruotsalainen. You are a Swede/Swedish
Hän on tanskalainen. He/she is a Dane/Danish.

But what if you want to talk about languages? How do you say I speak Finnish in Finnish?
We need to learn another verb, the verb puhua, to speak.

Puhua to speak
The singular personal pronouns: these are the words you use when you speak of only one person.
Minä I
Sinä you
Hän he / she

The word he in Finnish, is hän.
The word she in Finnish, is hän.
In Finnish the pronouns don't have gender. You can't tell the gender of the person in Finnish.

In Finnish, the verbs are inflected according to the subject (the person who does the verb).
The verb to speak, puhua, is inflected like this:
Minä puhun I speak
Sinä puhut you speak (singular, one person)
Hän puhuu he speaks/she speaks
You can drop the pronouns minä and sinä, if you like. It does not change the meaning.
Puhun. I speak.
Puhut. You speak.

The pronoun before puhuu (hän) cannot be dropped without changing the meaning. It can be replaced with another word, though.

Poika puhuu.             The boy speaks.
Kuningas puhuu.       The king speaks.
Äiti puhuu.                 The mother speaks.
Ruotsalainen puhuu.  A Swede speaks.
Anne puhuu.               Anne speaks.
Kuva puhuu.              The picture speaks.

Next lesson:

4. Speaking languages