Formal Finnish loves to attach a whole background circumstance to a sentence without spending a finite verb on it. English does this with the absolute construction — "the weather being fine, we set off" — and Finnish has an even crisper counterpart built on the E-infinitive: Sään salliessa lähdemme ("weather permitting, we'll leave"). Some of these phrases are still fully productive; others have frozen into fixed discourse connectors like näin ollen ("this being so") and toisin sanoen ("in other words"). This page covers both ends of that spectrum, which belong to careful written and (literary) Finnish.
The -essa absolute: a detached "while / as" clause
The inessive of the E-infinitive (-essa / -essä) means "while / as / when" something is going on. Give it its own subject in the genitive, and you have a true absolute construction: a mini-clause with its own subject, set off from the main clause, describing the surrounding circumstance.
Sään salliessa lähdemme retkelle jo aamulla.
Weather permitting, we'll set off on the trip in the morning.
Junan lähtiessä asemalta hän vilkutti ikkunasta.
As the train pulled out of the station, he waved from the window.
Auringon laskiessa meri muuttui kokonaan punaiseksi.
As the sun set, the sea turned entirely red.
The subject — sään, junan, auringon — is genitive, and the participle carries full vowel harmony and consonant gradation (salliessa, lähtiessä, laskiessa). When the detached clause has a predicate, olla supplies the participle ollessa:
Sään ollessa kaunis kannattaa syödä ulkona.
The weather being nice, it's worth eating outside.
This -essa form marks simultaneity ("while / as"). Do not confuse it with the past -ttua form, which marks anteriority ("after"): Sään salliessa is "the weather permitting (now)", whereas sään sallittua would be "after the weather permitted". The two are laid out side by side on the temporal construction page; the underlying participle is the present active participle's non-finite cousin.
The -en instructive: manner and frozen connectors
The instructive of the E-infinitive (-en) expresses the manner or means of the main action — "by / while doing" — and shares the main clause's subject, so it takes no separate subject at all:
Hän lähti ovea paukauttaen, sanomatta sanaakaan.
He left slamming the door, without saying a word.
Lapset juoksivat rantaan nauraen ja huutaen.
The children ran to the shore laughing and shouting.
This same -en form has crystallised into a stock of frozen discourse connectors — set phrases you memorise whole, not build fresh. They are the mortar of essayistic and (formal) prose:
| Connector | Literal parts | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| näin ollen | "thus being" | therefore, this being so |
| toisin sanoen | "otherwise saying" | in other words |
| kaiken huomioon ottaen | "taking everything into account" | all things considered |
| tarkkaan ottaen | "taking precisely" | strictly speaking |
| suoraan sanoen | "saying straight" | frankly, to be blunt |
Budjetti ylittyi selvästi; näin ollen hanketta on lykättävä.
The budget was clearly exceeded; this being so, the project must be postponed.
Kaiken huomioon ottaen ratkaisu oli paras mahdollinen.
All things considered, the solution was the best possible one.
Suoraan sanoen en usko koko suunnitelmaan.
Frankly, I don't believe in the whole plan.
The insight is that these connectors sit at the frozen end of a scale whose productive end is still wide open: näin ollen is fixed, but sään salliessa, kevään tullen, aikaa myöten and countless fresh -essa / -en phrases are coined on the spot. You cannot re-inflect näin ollen, but you can build vieraiden saapuessa ("as the guests arrive") whenever you need it.
Kevään tullen muuttolinnut palaavat pohjoiseen.
When spring comes, the migratory birds return north.
Why English speakers under-use them
Faced with an English absolute — "the weather being fine", "all things considered", "that said" — learners reflexively translate it with a full finite subordinate clause: Koska sää oli kaunis…, Kun otetaan kaikki huomioon…. That is never wrong, but it is heavier and chattier than the crisp participial idiom a native writer reaches for. Learning to compress a kun- or koska-clause into sään ollessa kaunis or näin ollen is one of the clearest markers of advanced, written-register Finnish. For the broader stylistics of these non-finite forms, see non-finite register and the agent-participle clause.
Common Mistakes
❌ Sää salliessa lähdemme.
Incorrect — the detached subject must be genitive: sään salliessa.
✅ Sään salliessa lähdemme.
Weather permitting, we'll leave.
❌ Sään salliessaan lähdemme.
Incorrect — a separate genitive subject takes no possessive suffix; -an only appears when the subject is shared and dropped.
✅ Sään salliessa lähdemme.
Weather permitting, we'll leave.
❌ Sään sallittua lähdemme heti.
Wrong tense sense — the -ttua form means 'after'; 'weather permitting' (simultaneous) needs -essa: sään salliessa.
✅ Sään salliessa lähdemme heti.
Weather permitting, we'll leave right away.
❌ Näin oleen hanketta on lykättävä.
Misspelled connector — it's the frozen näin ollen.
✅ Näin ollen hanketta on lykättävä.
This being so, the project must be postponed.
❌ Ottaen kaiken huomioon lapset juoksivat nauraen minun.
Incorrect — the -en instructive shares the main subject and takes no genitive of its own.
✅ Lapset juoksivat rantaan nauraen.
The children ran to the shore laughing.
Key Takeaways
- The -essa E-infinitive builds a detached "while / as" clause; with its own genitive subject it is a true absolute: sään salliessa, junan lähtiessä.
- Shared subject → drop the subject, add a possessive (lukiessani); different subject → genitive, no possessive (sään salliessa). Never both.
- -essa is simultaneous ("while"); the past -ttua is anterior ("after") — keep them apart.
- The -en instructive gives manner ("laughing", "slamming the door") and underlies frozen connectors: näin ollen, toisin sanoen, kaiken huomioon ottaen.
- These idioms are (formal / literary); compressing a kun-clause into one is a hallmark of advanced written Finnish.
Now practice Finnish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Finnish→Related Topics
- The Temporal Construction: Kotiin tullessaniB2 — Replace a 'while/when' kun-clause with the second infinitive inessive -essa plus a possessive suffix: Kotiin tullessani soi puhelin ('while I was coming home, the phone rang').
- Agent Participle Clauses: äidin tekemä ruokaB2 — The agent participle -ma/-mä with a genitive agent replaces a joka-relative clause: 'the house that father built' becomes isän rakentama talo.
- Present Active Participle -va/-väB1 — The -va/-vä participle turns a verb into an agreeing adjective — lähtevä juna 'the departing train' — compressing a whole relative clause into a single word.
- Non-Finite Style: Officialese vs SpeechC2 — Formal Finnish compresses clauses into participles and infinitives; spoken Finnish unpacks them into että-, kun- and jotta-clauses. How to match the register.