Study guide
Passiivin aikamuodot
You can already build tehdään, tehtiin, on tehty and oli tehty. This guide is about choosing between them, and every choice comes down to two questions.
- 1Warm up first. Guess before you read. A wrong guess now makes the explanation stick later.
- 2Read the four contrasts. Each one ends with a single check.
- 3Practise in short rounds and come back in a couple of days. The page remembers what you missed.
Before you read
Warm-up: eight sentences
Pick the form that fits each sentence. Don’t look anything up. The answers, and what your mistakes say, come at the end.
Eilen meillä oli juhlat. Ensin (syödä), ja sitten tanssittiin aamuun asti.
Foundation
What the passive says
The Finnish passive means people do this, and the sentence doesn’t say who. The doer is always human, even when nobody names them.
That “someone did it” sense is why on + -ttu reads as a state. If someone has locked the door, the door is locked.
| Thena moment in the past | Nowalso habits and the future | |
|---|---|---|
| Done | pluskvamperfektiOvi oli lukittu.The door was locked. Someone had locked it. | perfektiOvi on lukittu.The door is locked. Someone has locked it. |
| Happening | imperfektiOvi lukittiin kello 22.The door was locked at ten. That is when someone locked it. | preesensOvi lukitaan kello 22.The door is locked at ten. That is when they lock it. |
English says “is locked” for both sentences on the right and “was locked” for both on the left. Finnish makes you decide whether the locking is happening or already done.
In everyday speech the passive also means “we”: Me mennään is “we’re going”, and Mennään! is “let’s go”. There’s more on that in Now reaches forward.
The model
Two questions
Where are you standing?
Now is the moment of speaking, and in Finnish it also covers habits, rules and the future. Then is a moment in a finished past: the scene of a story.
At that point, is the action happening or done?
Happening: you see it take place, or it’s the habit or the plan. Done: it’s already behind you, and you’re looking at the result or at everything up to that point.
| Then | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| Done | pluskvamperfektioli tehtyhad been done | perfektion tehtyhas been done |
| Happening | imperfektitehtiinwas done, got done | preesenstehdäänis done, is being done, will be done |
Read the compound forms literally. On tehty is “is done” and oli tehty is “was done”. The auxiliary says where you stand, and the participle says the action is done.
Contrast 1 · imperfekti or perfekti
Same event, two camera positions
Most mistakes happen here, because both forms talk about something that happened in the past. The difference is where you put the camera.
- Imperfekti moves the camera into the past. You tell what happened there, as part of a story or a finished period.
- Perfekti keeps the camera in the present. You report that it has happened because that matters now: there’s a result, the period isn’t over yet, or the question is about experience up to now.
Words that tip the balance
Usually perfekti: seen from now
- jo
- ei vielä
- koskaan
- ennen(kin)
- tähän mennessä
- viime aikoina
- tänä vuonna while it lasts
- kolme kertaa so far
Usually imperfekti: inside then
- eilen
- viime viikolla
- vuonna 1990
- silloin
- kun olin lapsi
- kaksi vuotta sitten
- ensin… sitten… one event after another
The rule with a catch
You may have learned that a specific past time means imperfekti. It’s a good default, but Finnish bends it when the sentence describes something that still exists. A flat listing says Talo on rakennettu vuonna 1952, and a photo caption says Kuva on otettu Helsingissä 1950-luvulla. The date is a fact about the house or the photo as they are now. A history of the street tells the event instead: Talo rakennettiin vuonna 1952.
English can’t do this (“has been built in 1952” is wrong), which is why the Finnish version feels odd at first. Both are correct, and the camera decides.
News uses both in a fixed rhythm: the lead reports the new situation in perfekti, and the details tell the story in imperfekti. Reading the news walks through a real report.
Check
Naapuri kysyy: ”Onko kattoa koskaan korjattu?” Sinä: ”On, se (korjata) kaksi kertaa.”
Contrast 2 · preesens or perfekti
Happening or done?
Both forms stand in the now. The question is whether the action itself is taking place, or has already taken place so that its result is in front of you.
English is the trap here. “Is closed” can be the act of closing or the state of being closed, and Finnish splits the two.
Signs, labels and headlines
They drop the on, but the bare participle is still perfekti: Suljettu. Valmistettu Suomessa. Pakattu suojakaasuun. A real MTV Uutiset headline puts both forms in one line:
Kasitie suljettu liikenteeltä Kristiinankaupungissa onnettomuuden vuoksi, liikenne ohjataan kiertotielleThe road is closed, which is done, and traffic is being diverted, which is happening.
Instructions and recipes
Instructions use preesens, because every step is an action still to happen: Sipuli kuoritaan ja pilkotaan. Kastike keitetään kokoon.
Check
You mean: The shop is closed now. Come back tomorrow.
Kauppa (sulkea). Tule huomenna uudestaan.
Contrast 3 · imperfekti or pluskvamperfekti
Then, or before then?
Now the camera stands in the past, inside a story, and the same happening-or-done question applies at that moment.
- Imperfekti gives the story’s events as they happen.
- Pluskvamperfekti gives what had already happened before that moment, so its result was there when the story arrived.
English “was locked” splits the same way “is locked” did.
Things you were told
What you heard earlier often goes into pluskvamperfekti: Meille kerrottiin, että esitys oli peruttu. Finnish doesn’t force this the way English does, and …että esitys on peruttu is normal too when it’s still true now. Either way, the form shows where you stand.
Check
Heräsin myöhään. Aamupala (syödä) jo, joten söin pelkän voileivän.
Contrast 4 · the now column, forward
Now reaches into the future
Finnish has no future tense, so the now column covers what’s coming as well.
- Preesens for plans and the future: Uusi kirjasto avataan ensi syksynä. Huomenna siivotaan.
- Perfekti for what will already be done by then: Kun kaikki on pakattu, lähdetään. Ensi vuonna talo on jo myyty.
One kun-sentence, four ways
The same two questions run through kun-clauses. Hold the words still and only the meaning moves:
| Then | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| Done | Kun oli syöty, lähdettiin.Once we’d eaten, we left. | Kun on syöty, lähdetään.Once we’ve eaten, we’ll go. |
| Happening | Kun syötiin, juteltiin.While we were eating, we talked. | Kun syödään, ei puhuta puhelimessa.While eating, you don’t talk on the phone. |
Spoken Finnish: the passive as “we”
| Spoken | Written | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Me mennään. | Me menemme. | We go, we’re going. |
| Mennään! | Mennään! | Let’s go! |
| Me mentiin. | Me menimme. | We went. |
| Me ollaan menty. | Me olemme menneet. | We have gone. |
| Me oltiin menty. | Me olimme menneet. | We had gone. |
The spoken perfect uses ollaan, the passive of olla: me ollaan syöty. Without me, Täällä on syöty is the impersonal “someone has eaten here”. In writing, keep the impersonal perfect standard: Asiasta on päätetty, not Asiasta ollaan päätetty.
Check
Kun astiat (tiskata), katsotaan elokuva.
Authentic text
Reading the news
Two real reports. Before you tap a verb, say to yourself where the camera is and whether the action is happening or done. Then tap to check.
Kasitie liikenteeltä Kristiinankaupungissa onnettomuuden vuoksi, liikenne kiertotielle
Valtatie 8 liikenteeltä Kristiinankaupungissa liikenneonnettomuuden vuoksi, kertoo Fintrafficin tieliikennekeskus.
Raskasta liikennettä kiertämään Isojoen kautta teitä 664 ja 661 pitkin.
Fintrafficin mukaan raivaustöiden kestoksi 3–6 tuntia.
Suomalaismiestä yli kuukausi maailmalla – murhatapauksen epäiltynä Thaimaassa
Suomalainen mies Thaimaassa epäiltynä osallisuudesta ruotsalaismiehen murhatapaukseen.
Häntä lähes kaksi kuukautta ennen tällä viikolla Thaimaassa tapahtunutta pidätystä.
Suomalaisen joko olevan vastuussa ruotsalaismiehen murhasta tai auttaneen siinä.
Suomalaismiehestä kansainvälinen pidätysmääräys, ja pidätyksen tekivät Thaimaan viranomaiset.
Notice the rhythm in the second report: the news in perfekti, the background story in imperfekti, the current state in preesens, and the earlier warrant in pluskvamperfekti. The non-passive details follow the same logic: pidätyksen tekivät Thaimaan viranomaiset.
Keep this
The card
- Where do you stand? A moment in a finished past puts you in the then column. Now, a habit, a rule or the future puts you in the now column.
- At that point, is the action happening or done? Happening takes the simple form: tehtiin, tehdään. Done takes oli or on + -ttu.
Traps
- English “is/was + -ed” can mean either row. Ask whether it’s an action or a state.
- A past date doesn’t rule out perfekti when you describe something that exists now.
- Kun meaning “once it’s done” takes on or oli + -ttu.
- A bare participle on a sign or in a headline (Suljettu) is perfekti.
- In speech, me + passive means “we”.
Retrieval
Practice rounds
Ten mixed sentences a round. What you miss comes back in the next round. What you get right comes back after a day, then three days, then a week. Once you’ve got an item right twice, you type the form instead of picking it.
Loading your history…
Production
Write your own
Picking from four is easier than writing from nothing. Choose a prompt, write two or three sentences, and Claude checks the passive tenses using the same two questions.
Spacing
Coming back
Do a practice round today, then come back in two days. Missed items return first.
The conditional passive (tehtäisiin, olisi tehty) splits the same way, happening or done, so it makes a natural next guide.