One of the uses of the passive is as the spoken form of the first person plural (e.g. me mennään instead of me menemme; me syödään instead of me syömme). The passive is used extremely often in spoken language. It is therefore a topic that you should familiarize yourself with fairly early in your studies. This article is a spoken language passive overview.

We have another article about the passive’s different tenses. This article is very similar to that one, but we’ll be focusing on how these conjugations work specifically in spoken language.

1. The Present Passive

The passive present’s marker is -an/-än. This tense is used to express that we’re doing something right now, or that we do something often or always. As said above, the present passive is used to replace the first person plural conjugation of the verb. For example:

• Standard Finnish: me nukumme – me emme nuku “we sleep – we don’t sleep”
• Spoken Finnish: me nukutaan – me ei nukuta
• Standard Finnish: me rakastamme – me emme rakasta “we love – we don’t love”
• Spoken Finnish: me rakastetaan – me ei rakasteta

 Learn more about the present passive in general here. 

2. The Past Passive – Passive Imperfect

The past passive’s marker is -tiin or -ttiin. This tense is used to express we did something in the past at a specific point of time, and that this action is completely finished.

• Standard Finnish: me nukuimme – me emme nukkuneet “we slept – we didn’t sleep”
• Spoken Finnish: me nukuttiin – me ei nukuttu
• Standard Finnish: me rakastimme – me emme rakastaneet “we loved – we didn’t love”
• Spoken Finnish: me rakastettiin – me ei rakastettu

 Learn more about the past passive here. 

3. The Perfect Passive – Passiivin Perfekti

The passive perfect’s construction is built up from the passive form of the verb olla in combination with the past passive participle -(t)tu or -(t)ty. In spoken language, this tense is used to express that we have done something.

The spoken language and standard language forms of the passive perfect differ in several aspects. Firstly, in spoken language, you will be adding the pronoun “me” in front of the passive. Secondly, the word order will be different. Lastly and most importantly, the verb olla will be conjugated as on in standard Finnish, and as ollaan in spoken Finnish. The form using ollaan is called “kaksoispassiivi” in Finnish and generally a source of much disapproval.

• Standard language: “Talo on rakennettu.” (the house has been built)
• Spoken language: “Me ollaan rakennettu talo.” (we’ve built a house)
• Standard language: “Lavalla ei ole tanssittu.” (there has not been danced on the stage)
• Spoken language: “Me ei olla tanssittu lavalla.” (we haven’t danced on the stage)

 Learn more about the past passive participle here. 

4. The Passive Conditional

Next in this spoken language passive overview, the passive conditional. The passive conditional’s marker is -taisiin or -ttaisiin. In spoken language, it will often get shortened to -(t)tais. That’s the form I will be using in the table below.

This form of the verb is used to express that we would do something (often in combination with a condition, and a jos-sentence). You could for example express that you would buy a car if you were to win the lottery (me ostettais auto jos voitettais lotossa), or would go for a walk if it wasn’t raining (me mentäis kävelylle jos ei sataisi).

• Standard Finnish: me nukkuisimme – me emme nukkuisi “we would sleep – we wouldn’t sleep”
• Spoken Finnish: me nukuttais – me ei nukuttais
• Standard Finnish: me rakastaisimme – me emme rakastaisi “we would love – we wouldn’t love”
• Spoken Finnish: me rakastettais – me ei rakastettais

 Learn more about the passive conditional here. 

5. The Passive Perfect Conditional

Last but not least in this spoken language passive overview: the passive perfect conditional.

The passive perfect conditional’s construction is built up from the passive form of the verb olla in the conditional form in combination with the past passive participle -(t)tu or -(t)ty. In spoken language, this tense is used to express that we would have done something if some condition would have been met.

This form is often used with jos-sentences. You could for example express that you would have bought a car if you had won the lottery (me oltais ostettu auto jos oltais voitettu lotossa), or you would have gone for a walk if it hadn’t rained (me oltais menty kävelylle jos ei olisi satanut).

The spoken language and standard language forms differ in several aspects. Firstly, in spoken language, you will be adding the pronoun “me” in front of the passive. Secondly, the word order will be different. Lastly and most importantly, the verb olla will be conjugated as olisi in standard Finnish, and as oltais in spoken Finnish.

• Standard language: “Talo olisi rakennettu.” (the house would have been built)
• Spoken language: “Me oltais rakennettu talo.” (we would have built a house)
• Standard language: “Lavalla ei olisi tanssittu.” (there would not have been danced on the stage)
• Spoken language: “Me ei oltais tanssittu lavalla.” (we haven’t danced on the stage)

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think of this spoken language passive overview in the comments!

Related posts:

The Passive – Present Passive The Passive Present Participle – TAVA-Participle Elefantti or Norsu? Loanwords vs Finnish Words Syntax of Spoken Finnish – Spoken Language Grammar