Finnish has no gendered third-person pronouns. There is only one third-person pronoun, used to refer to people: Hän. Like English, Finnish also has a third-person pronoun used for non-human objects or ideas, completely equivalent to the English pronoun "it": Se.
In theory, hän ought to work like "he" and "she" in English, and se ought to work as "it" in English. In other words, in theory you ought to use hän when referring to people, and se when referring to objects, ideas, or other non-human things.
In practice, however, that's only true for written Finnish, and extremely formal spoken Finnish. In practice, for the most part, in colloquial spoken Finnish even people are usually referred to with the pronoun se, even though it really literally means "it", and in theory ought to be used only with inanimate objects and ideas.
This is a very strange quirk of colloquial Finnish. In theory, using the pronoun se, when talking about a person, is demeaning and dehumanizing, because you are talking about that person as if he or she were an object or an animal (in Finnish animals are also always referred to with se, even in formal written Finnish prose, almost never as hän, which would sound odd, unless perhaps in some types of fiction, or very affectionately when referring to a pet), and the proper way to refer to someone is hän.
And, in fact, and as said above, this is indeed the case in written Finnish, for the most part. Even in less formal writing, if you use se to refer to a person, it feels wrong. It feels exactly as wrong as using "it" in English text when talking about a person.
But this is not, for the most part, in most of Finland, the case with spoken colloquial Finnish. In spoken Finnish it's extremely common to refer to people with se, and it doesn't feel wrong at all.
On the contrary, and very curiously, the role of the two pronouns is pretty much reversed in colloquial spoken Finnish: When talking, if referring to someone with the word hän, it may feel awkward, and perhaps even a bit mocking, especially if talking about a friend or someone close, such as a family member. It almost feels like you are referring to that person as a stranger, rather than a friend. The word doesn't really have that meaning, but it just gives that feeling if used like that. It almost feels like using hän is too formal, too polite, and almost like you were mocking that person, even though that's not the intent. It's not like the word hän some kind of archaic ultra-formal old form of referring to people; it's a normal modern Finnish word, and there shouldn't be anything strange about it.
One thing that might have affected this strange phenomenon is that the word "hän" is different from all other personal pronouns. The Finnish personal pronouns are: Minä, sinä, hän, me, te, he. (In most Finnish dialects the first two pronouns are, informally, abbreviated to "mä" ja "sä".)
The pronoun "hän" is the odd one out. It's of a different form, as it ends in an "n", unlike the others, and it just kind of disrupts the flow of speech if you use it. It's hard to describe how, if you don't speak fluent Finnish, but it's just kind of a bit awkward to pronounce, especially compared to "se", which is much more fluent. When "hän" is used, it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb in the sentence, disrupting the natural flow of the sentence.
For example, it's much more fluent to say, for instance, "mitä se tekee siellä?" ("what is he doing there?") than "mitä hän tekee siellä?" The latter is just slightly awkward to say. (You really have to be fluent in Finnish to understand this.)
That might be why in spoken Finnish it has fallen out of use, while it's still the appropriate form in written Finnish, even when writing informal text. In written Finnish it doesn't "disrupt the flow" in the same way, and doesn't "stick out". (Although many people will write "spoken Finnish", especially when eg. messaging via phone or the internet, and may well use "se" quite liberally. But even slightly more formal than that, and using "se" to refer to a person just feels wrong.)
In theory, hän ought to work like "he" and "she" in English, and se ought to work as "it" in English. In other words, in theory you ought to use hän when referring to people, and se when referring to objects, ideas, or other non-human things.
In practice, however, that's only true for written Finnish, and extremely formal spoken Finnish. In practice, for the most part, in colloquial spoken Finnish even people are usually referred to with the pronoun se, even though it really literally means "it", and in theory ought to be used only with inanimate objects and ideas.
This is a very strange quirk of colloquial Finnish. In theory, using the pronoun se, when talking about a person, is demeaning and dehumanizing, because you are talking about that person as if he or she were an object or an animal (in Finnish animals are also always referred to with se, even in formal written Finnish prose, almost never as hän, which would sound odd, unless perhaps in some types of fiction, or very affectionately when referring to a pet), and the proper way to refer to someone is hän.
And, in fact, and as said above, this is indeed the case in written Finnish, for the most part. Even in less formal writing, if you use se to refer to a person, it feels wrong. It feels exactly as wrong as using "it" in English text when talking about a person.
But this is not, for the most part, in most of Finland, the case with spoken colloquial Finnish. In spoken Finnish it's extremely common to refer to people with se, and it doesn't feel wrong at all.
On the contrary, and very curiously, the role of the two pronouns is pretty much reversed in colloquial spoken Finnish: When talking, if referring to someone with the word hän, it may feel awkward, and perhaps even a bit mocking, especially if talking about a friend or someone close, such as a family member. It almost feels like you are referring to that person as a stranger, rather than a friend. The word doesn't really have that meaning, but it just gives that feeling if used like that. It almost feels like using hän is too formal, too polite, and almost like you were mocking that person, even though that's not the intent. It's not like the word hän some kind of archaic ultra-formal old form of referring to people; it's a normal modern Finnish word, and there shouldn't be anything strange about it.
One thing that might have affected this strange phenomenon is that the word "hän" is different from all other personal pronouns. The Finnish personal pronouns are: Minä, sinä, hän, me, te, he. (In most Finnish dialects the first two pronouns are, informally, abbreviated to "mä" ja "sä".)
The pronoun "hän" is the odd one out. It's of a different form, as it ends in an "n", unlike the others, and it just kind of disrupts the flow of speech if you use it. It's hard to describe how, if you don't speak fluent Finnish, but it's just kind of a bit awkward to pronounce, especially compared to "se", which is much more fluent. When "hän" is used, it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb in the sentence, disrupting the natural flow of the sentence.
For example, it's much more fluent to say, for instance, "mitä se tekee siellä?" ("what is he doing there?") than "mitä hän tekee siellä?" The latter is just slightly awkward to say. (You really have to be fluent in Finnish to understand this.)
That might be why in spoken Finnish it has fallen out of use, while it's still the appropriate form in written Finnish, even when writing informal text. In written Finnish it doesn't "disrupt the flow" in the same way, and doesn't "stick out". (Although many people will write "spoken Finnish", especially when eg. messaging via phone or the internet, and may well use "se" quite liberally. But even slightly more formal than that, and using "se" to refer to a person just feels wrong.)
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