Two words will get you through almost every door in Finland: hei and moi. Both mean hello, both work at any hour with anyone, and both double as goodbye if you say them twice. That's the entire minimum requirement.
Everything else on this page is what you add once the minimum is covered — the time-of-day greetings you'll see written on café doors, the farewells that fit different situations, and the good wishes Finns actually use. There's one thing to know before you start: Finnish greetings are short. There's no equivalent of the English "hi, how are you, good thanks, and you?" exchange that happens before the real conversation. In Finland the greeting is the conversation opener, and then you say what you came to say.
Hello
Hi
Moi
Hello
Hei
Good morning
Huomenta
Good morning (full form)
Hyvää huomenta
Good day
Päivää
Good evening
Hyvää iltaa
Good night
Hyvää yötä
Welcome
Tervetuloa
Nice to meet you
Hauska tavata
Long time no see
Pitkästä aikaa
Practice these words
Moi
Quick notes:
- Huomenta is the everyday form — the longer hyvää huomenta is a bit formal for a corridor.
- Päivää is the neutral daytime greeting you'll hear when someone walks into a small shop or an office. It's polite without being stiff.
- Hyvää yötä is only for actually going to bed, not for leaving a party. For that, use a goodbye from the table below.
- Tervetuloa is written on doors, signs and welcome mats across Finland. It's one word, not two.
Goodbye
Bye
Moi moi
Bye (2 Version)
Hei hei
Goodbye (formal)
Näkemiin
Goodbye (on the phone)
Kuulemiin
See you
Nähdään
See you later
Nähdään myöhemmin
See you tomorrow
Nähdään huomenna
Take care
Pidä huolta
Practice these words
Moi moi
Quick notes:
- Doubling flips the meaning. Moi is hello; moi moi is goodbye. Same with hei and hei hei.
- Näkemiin literally means "until seeing." It's the goodbye for shops, offices and anyone you're being polite with.
- Kuulemiin means "until hearing," and it's used almost exclusively for ending phone calls. Using it face to face would be odd.
- Nähdään on its own is the friendly, casual "see you" — no time attached, no commitment implied.
How Are You?
How are you?
Mitä kuuluu?
How's it going?
Miten menee?
Fine, thanks.
Kiitos hyvää.
Good, thanks. And you?
Hyvää, kiitos. Entä sinulle?
Not bad.
Ei hassumpaa.
All good.
Kaikki hyvin.
Practice these words
Mitä kuuluu?
Quick notes:
- Mitä kuuluu? is a real question in Finland, not a formula. If you ask it, expect an actual answer — and give one when asked.
- Because of that, Finns don't attach it to every greeting the way English speakers do. Walking into a shop, you say hei and stop there.
- Ei hassumpaa ("not bad") is a nicely Finnish answer — understated, faintly positive, and very commonly used.
Good Wishes
Have a nice day!
Hyvää päivänjatkoa!
Have a nice weekend!
Hyvää viikonloppua!
Have a good trip!
Hyvää matkaa!
Good luck!
Onnea!
Enjoy your meal!
Hyvää ruokahalua!
Sleep well!
Nuku hyvin!
Get well soon!
Pikaista paranemista!
Practice these words
Hyvää päivänjatkoa!
Quick note: notice hyvää ("good") starting five of these. It's the standard opener for wishing someone anything in Finnish, and once you have it you can recognise the rest of a wish even if the second word is new.
What to Know About Greeting in Finnish
The first thing is length. Finnish greetings are complete in one word, and adding more doesn't make them warmer — it makes them formal. A Finn walking into a bakery says hei, gets a hei back, and orders. The English instinct to fill the gap with "how are you, lovely weather isn't it" reads as slightly odd rather than friendly. This isn't coldness; it's a different distribution of politeness, and Finns spend theirs on kiitos ("thank you") instead, which they use generously.
The second is the doubling trick, which is genuinely useful and genuinely strange. Moi and hei mean hello, but moi moi and hei hei mean goodbye. Nothing in the words themselves signals this — repetition does all the work. Say moi once when you arrive and twice when you leave, and you've handled both ends of the conversation with one syllable of vocabulary.
The third is that formality barely exists here. Finnish has a polite form, but greetings mostly ignore it: moi is acceptable to your boss, your neighbour, a shop assistant and a stranger holding a door. The main exceptions are päivää and näkemiin, which you'd use in a bank, a doctor's waiting room, or with someone considerably older — situations where a bit of formal distance is expected. If you're unsure which register you're in, hei is the safe middle and nobody has ever been offended by it.