This article covers the basics of the imperfect tense (imperfekti).

1. The Use of the Imperfect Tense

The imperfect is the past tense. It’s used for past events, with phrases like “viime viikolla“, “vuonna 2005” and “eilen“. It’s used for things that are completely over. Learn more about the negative past tense as well!

2. The Formation of the Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense is fairly complicated for some verbtypes, and fairly simple for others. All in all, there are a lot of things to take into consideration: consonant gradation, verbtypes and what letters the verbs end in. Each of those has an effect on the verb in the imperfect tense.

The imperfect’s marker is -i-, but can appear as -si- and -oi- as well.

2.1. Verbtype 1

Verbtype 1 has several groups. We’ll look at each group separately. Note that at this point of the article, we’re not focusing on consonant gradation changes. There’s a separate section at the end of this article for that.

2.1.1. Verbtype 1: -ua, -yä, -oa or -öä

First up: verbs which have an infinitive that ends in -ua, -yä, -oa or -öä. For these, you add imperfect’s -i- behind the u, y, o and ö without making any changes to the stem. Please note how the third person singular ends in one -i only.

2.1.2. Verbtype 1: -ea, -eä, -ää

Secondly: verbs which end in -ea, -eä or -ää in their basic form (infinitive). For these, you remove the -e- or -ä- when adding the imperfect’s -i-.

2.1.3. Verbtype 1: -ia, -iä

For verbs which have a basic form that ends in -ia/iä, the present and the past tense look identical in most forms. For example, for the verb tanssia, both the present and the past tense are minä tanssin, ie. “I dance” AND “I danced”.

This is the case because you first remove the stem’s -i- (tanss-) and then add the imperfect’s -i-. As such, you end up with the same number of i‘s in both tenses. The only person where there is a difference is the third person: the present tense is hän tanssii and the past tense hän tanssi.

2.1.4. Verbtype 1: a…a → a…oi verbs

Verbs that follow the a…a → a…oi pattern are, for example, mak-saa, lau-laa, tap-paa:

• They are verbs that have two syllables only
• AND have an -a- both in the first and the last syllable.

This second -a- will turn into -oi- for the imperfect. You can learn more about these types of verbs in this separate article.

2.1.5. Verbtype 1: Other verbs ending in -aa

For all verbs ending in -aa — except for the ones in section 2.1.4 — the imperfect’s -i- will replace the final vowel. This group includes:

• Verbs ending in -aa that don’t have an a in their first syllables (these only have an o or an u in their first syllable)
• Verbs ending in -aa that have more than two syllables (e.g. rakastaa has three syllables while maksaa has two syllables)

2.1.6. Verbtype 1: -ltaa/-ltää, -rtaa/-rtää, -ntaa/-ntää, –vvtaa/-vvtää

The last verbtype 1 category is fairly rare, but includes some very frequently used verbs (e.g. tietää (-vvtää) and ymmärtää (-rtää) belong to it). You can recognise these verbs based on their infinitive: they end in a very specific sequence of letters. You can learn about these types of verbs in our separate article.

2.2. Verbtype 2

Verbtype 2 has three groups. It also has one irregular verb: the verb käydä (minä kävin, sinä kävit, hän kävi).

2.2.1. Verbtype 2 myydä-type verbs

Myydä-type verbs are short: they have two syllables. In the first syllable they can have either a long vowel or a diphthong. Remove one of the long vowels when you add the imperfect’s -i.

For verbs which have a diphthong in the first syllable (vie-dä, juo-da, syö-da), you should remove the first vowel of the first syllable. After that, add the imperfect’s -i- to the end of the stem. This might sound confusing, but look at the examples below: the vowel marked with violet from the present tense is the one disappearing.

2.2.2. Verbtype 2 ida-verbs imperfect

The pattern above doesn’t hold true for verbtype 2 verbs that end in -ida/-idä. All verbtype 2 verbs that end in -ida look exactly the same when conjugated in the present and the past tense. This is due to the same reason as for tanssia type verbs: when conjugating these verbs, you replace the –i– from the stem of the verb with the –i– of the imperfect.

This group consists of both short and longer verbs: uida-type verbs of two syllable that end in -ida, and longer oida-verbs (3 syllables and more). You could say these verbs are the easiest, because their present and past tense conjugation look identical.

2.2.3. Verbtype 2 Imperfect Exceptional Verbs

In addition to the verbs nähdä and tehdä, the imperfect tense has one clear exceptional verb: käydä (to visit a place). This verb surprises us with a -v-!

2.3. Verbtype 3 Imperfect Tense

Verbtype 3 verbs all have in common that there will be an -e- at the end of the stem. This -e- will be replaced with an -i- in the imperfect. For the third person, both -e-‘s will disappear.

2.4. Verbtype 4 Imperfect Tense

All verbtype 4 verbs will get -si- in the imperfect. The history behind this is quite interesting, but will be perhaps addressed in a blog post later on rather than here.

2.5. Verbtype 5 Imperfect

Verbtype 5 is very much like verbtype 3 in the sense that both have an -e- at the end of their stem, and this -e- gets replaced by an -i- in the imperfect for both verbtypes.

2.6. Verbtype 6 Imperfect Tense

Verbtype 6 verbs are also like verbtype 3 and 5: they have an -e- at the end of their stem, and this -e- gets replaced by an -i- in the imperfect.

3. The Negative Imperfect Tense

I have a separate article all about the negative forms of the imperfect tense. They’re not at all similar to the affirmative forms, so it’s kind of like learning a completely different tense when you start making negative past tense sentences.

4. Consonant Gradation in the Imperfect Tense

Consonant gradation in the past tense works the exact same as in the present tense. You can use the present as a tool for finding out if you need the strong or weak form.

That concludes the article on the imperfect tense!

Related posts:

The Plusquamperfect Tense – Pluskvamperfekti The Finnish Verbtypes The Perfect Tense – Perfekti The Imperfect and Perfect Tense: Examples