Lesson 3 - Greetings

In the following section, you will learn how to greet people in Kven. We will cover every form of greeting, focusing on the most commonly used phrases.

Verbs throughout the lesson will be marked in orange to help you become more acquainted with them.

The easiest way to greet someone is by saying:

Hei!

Hi! / Hello! / Bye!

The phrase "hei" can be used to greet someone or to bid farewell.

If you want to be more polite, you can say:

Hyvvää päivvää!

Good day!

The phrase "hyvvää päivvää" can be used throughout the day.

Consider asking how they are before continuing your conversation. You can ask:

Kunka se mennee?

How are you? / How's everything going?

Your answers could be:

Hyvin se mennee, kiitos! Entä sie?

I'm fine thank you. And you?

Kyllä se mennee. / Kyllä se passaa.

So-so

Se mennee huonosti! Sie?

Not very well. You?

If you don't want to sound too redundant, you can simply say "hyvin" or "huonosti".

The following are some other greeting phrases used throughout the day.

There are three ways to say "goodbye" in Kven:

Näjettelemä!

Goodbye!

(Met) näjemä!

Goodbye!

Hei hei! / Hei!

Bye!

The pronoun "met" is optional; the first two sentences literally mean "we'll see (each other)".

The word "tervettulemaa" means "welcome" in Kven, and can be used with the illative case.

Tervettulemaa!

Welcome

Tervettulemaa kothiin!

Welcome home!