The Finnish language has no gender specific pronouns like "he" and "she" in English. Whatever the gender of the person you are talking about, they are referred to as hän in the singular.
Hän on Matti.
He is Matti.
Hän on Liisa.
She is Liisa.
To be in order
There are no articles in Finnish. That does not mean that you can put any old article in the English translation of a Finnish sentence. Sentences with the verb olla, "to be", put nouns in a certain order. The more important and complete something is, the earlier it appears. If a noun ends the sentence, it is somehow incomplete, often because the word does not include everything it by definition could. This is why final nouns in sentences with the verb "to be" are translated with an indefinite article.
Liisa on nainen.
Liisa is a woman.
Matti on mies.
Matti is a man.
Hän on velho.
S/he is a wizard.
Name is not an omen
Unlike in many other European languages, the last letter of a first name says nothing about the gender preferences associated with that name. There are also some names that have no preferred gender. Here are the first names introduced in this course:
Man
Woman
Neutral
Matti
Liisa
Kaino
Väinö
Aino
Vieno
Otso
Elsa
Lumi
Joni
Anna
Pyry
Tyyne
Miikka
Roosa
Leo
Kaisa
Happily married
Finnish diphthongs and vowel unions are blissfully happy. The letters in them represent the same sounds they stand for on their own. For example,
a + u = au
[ɑ] + [u] = [ɑu].
Stressed for success
In words that have three or fewer syllables, the stress is always on the first syllable. Unlike in English, the place of the stress does not affect the quality of the sounds.
lap-si
kau-nis
ko-me-a
mu-ka-va
This applies to Standard Finnish and many of the southern dialects. Most other forms of Finnish are considerably "bouncier".