This thoroughly revised third edition of Finnish: An Essential Grammar is grounded in fundamental insights of modern linguistics and incorporates some of the latest achievements in the description of written and spoken Finnish. It gives a systematic account of the structures of the written language and offers increased attention to the key characteristics of present-day colloquial Finnish. No prior knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader and grammatical rules are clearly explained without jargon. Features of this new edition include: * pronunciation guide, including the tendencies in present-day colloquial Finnish * thorough descriptions of morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure) * clear rules and an abundance of concrete examples, from both written and colloquial Finnish * updated vocabulary in the examples * an effective new scheme for detecting the morphological structure of any word form * subject index. This is the ideal reference source both for those studying Finnish independently and for students in schools, colleges, universities and adult classes of all types.