The past passive is very common in both sentences where we don’t specify who did the action, and in spoken language. In spoken language it replaces the me-form of the verb (e.g. me menimme becomes me mentiin).

1. Use of the Passive imperfect

We could call this form either the “past passive” or “passive imperfect”. Whichever you prefer, the usage is the same. The passive (both the present passive and the past passive) are used in the same situations.

1.1 When it’s not important who’s performing an action

When the focus of a sentence isn’t on who’s performing the action, but rather either on the process or on the result, we can use the passive. If the situation took place in the past, we use the past passive. In English, you will often find these translated as “was done” or “were done”. Note that the Finnish passive inherently refers to a person, not an object or animal.

1.2. When we don’t know who performed the action

Section 1.1 and 1.2 can overlap: we can both not know who did the action and not care who did it. I did want to add it separately as well. While we might not know who performed the action, these sentences do imply that the subject was a person, not an animal or a thing. For example, if we say “mies tapettiin“, this cannot mean an animal killed him, or that he was killed by a lightning strike.

1.3. The spoken language me-passiivi

In spoken language, people very often replace the first person plural –mme form of the verb with the passive. This is true for any of the Finnish passive tenses. For example, “me joimme” will often become “me juotiin” in spoken Finnish. In order to distinguish this usage of the passive from sections 1.1 and 1.2, you should use the pronoun “me“. This can usually be left out with the regular conjugation (e.g. “me joimme” will often just be “joimme“), but it is necessary when it isn’t clear if you’re using the “real” passive meaning or just the spoken language conjugation. You can read more about “puhekielen me-muoto” here.

2. The Formation of the Passive Imperfect

The present passive and the past passive are not always added to the same form, nor do they have the same ending each time. Some verbtypes have -tiin as the past passive’s marker, while others have -ttiin.

2.1. Verbtype 1 Passive: weak stem + -ttiin

For verbtype 1 verbs that end in -oa, -öä, -ua, -yä, -ea, -eä, -ia, or -iä, you use the weak stem and add -ttiin to it. The weak stem is found by taking the minä-form of the verb and remove the -n.

The second rule for verbtype 1 only applies to verbs whose infinitive ends in -aa/ää. For these verbs, you remove the -a/ä- at the end of the stem and replace with with an -e-.

2.2. Verbtypes 2 and 3: infinitive’s stem + -tiin

The infinitive’s stem is the stem you get by removing the last two letters of verbtype 2 and 3. To this stem, you add -tiin. If a vertype 3 verb normally undergoes consonant gradation, you will use the weak form for the passive imperfect, because it’s based on the infinitive, which is also weak.

Below, you can find some example sentences of verbtype 2 and 3 verbs.

2.3. Verbtypes 4, 5, and 6: infinitive’s stem + -ttiin

The infinitive’s stem is the stem you get by removing the last two letters of verbtype 4, 5 and 6. For these verbs, the passive imperfect will always be weak because it’s based on the weak infinitive (e.g. pelä- instead of pelkä- for the verb pelätä).

Below, you can find some example sentences which contain the passive imperfect of verbtype 4, 5 and 6 verbs.

3. Consonant Gradation in the Passive Imperfect

The passive imperfect for all verbtypes (VT) is weak! This means that for verbtype 1 you should look at the minä-form of the verb, while for all other verbtypes you use the weak grade that’s present in the infinitive of the verb. Read more about the concept of consonant gradation here.

4. The Negative Passive Imperfect

Take the positive passive imperfect and remove the -iin. Behind the one or two t’s you have left then, add -u or -y, depending on vowel harmony. In front of this word construction you of course have to add “ei”.

This form is also called the TU-participle or passive past participle.

5. The Object in Passive Sentences

In passive sentences, the object will never appear in the genitive case. Affirmative sentences will have objects in the basic form. In negative sentences there is no difference between regular sentences and passives.

You can read more about the object in general here.

Real-language use of the past passive

If you’re interested in how the conditional is used in authentic situations, you can listen to the following song:

Related posts:

The Passive – Present Passive Negative Present Passive – Passiivi Present Passive Participle Sentence Constructions Conversation Prompts – Passive sentences – Mitä tehdään…?