Open almost any Finnish research paper, law, or set of instructions and you will meet the same verb form again and again: todetaan, tarkastellaan, päätettiin, on osoitettu. This is the impersonal passive — the workhorse of formal Finnish prose. It lets a writer state, examine, decide, and conclude without ever naming who does it. English academic style leans on "it is argued that" and "the data were analysed"; Finnish does the whole job with one built-in verb form that has no agent at all. This page is about using it as a register tool — how the passive shapes the impersonal voice of essays, regulations, and recipes. The mechanics of forming it across every tense live on the passive overview page; here we focus on when and why the careful writer reaches for it.
The Finnish passive has no agent — that is the whole point
The one fact that reorganises everything: the Finnish passive is agentless. There is no "by"-phrase. You cannot say *kirja luettiin opiskelijan toimesta to mean "the book was read by the student" — that is a clumsy calque. The passive verb already implies a human but unspecified doer — "one, people, someone, we" — so adding an agent defeats it. This is exactly why formal Finnish loves it: when you want the statement to stand on its own, detached from any particular person, the passive delivers precisely that.
Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan kielenoppimisen varhaisia vaiheita.
This article examines the early stages of language acquisition.
Tuloksista voidaan päätellä, että vaikutus on merkittävä.
From the results it can be concluded that the effect is significant.
English needs "this article examines" (a slightly odd inanimate subject) or "we examine" (a stated author); Finnish just says tarkastellaan, and the doer stays offstage.
The three tenses of the impersonal statement
Formal writing needs the passive across time: what is examined, what was decided, what has been shown. Here is one proposition — todeta, "to state / find" — across the three tenses you will actually use in prose.
| Tense | Form | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Present | todetaan, että… | stating in the paper's "now": "it is noted that…" |
| Past | todettiin, että… | reporting what was done/found: "it was noted that…" |
| Perfect | on todettu, että… | established prior findings: "it has been shown that…" |
Kokouksessa päätettiin lykätä hanketta ensi vuoteen.
At the meeting it was decided to postpone the project to next year.
Aiemmissa tutkimuksissa on osoitettu, että ilmiö on yleinen.
Previous studies have shown that the phenomenon is common.
Aineisto kerättiin keväällä 2024 ja analysoitiin syksyllä.
The data were collected in spring 2024 and analysed in the autumn.
That last sentence is textbook academic Finnish: two past passives (kerättiin, analysoitiin) carrying a whole methods section with no author in sight.
Forming it, and the -tt- trap
The endings are -taan / -tään in the present, -ttiin / -tiin in the past, and on … -tu / -ty / -ttu / -tty in the perfect. Vowel harmony picks -taan (back) vs -tään (front): otetaan but tehdään, todetaan but käsitellään.
| Verb | Present | Past | Perfect |
|---|---|---|---|
| ottaa (take) | otetaan | otettiin | on otettu |
| tehdä (do) | tehdään | tehtiin | on tehty |
| esittää (present) | esitetään | esitettiin | on esitetty |
| käsitellä (deal with) | käsitellään | käsiteltiin | on käsitelty |
Watch the consonant carefully: the doubled -tt- shows up in the past (otettiin, esitettiin) but reduces to a single -t- in the present (otetaan, esitetään). Mixing these up — writing *otettaan for the present — is a common slip.
The object stays an object: no promotion
Here is where English intuitions mislead. English turns the passive patient into the grammatical subject, and the verb agrees with it: "the car is bought," "the cars are bought." Finnish does not do this. The patient stays a grammatical object and keeps object case; the verb is invariant — it never agrees in number.
Auto ostetaan ensi viikolla.
The car will be bought next week.
Autot ostetaan ensi viikolla.
The cars will be bought next week.
Singular auto, plural autot — but the verb is ostetaan both times. Compare a real subject, which would force agreement (auto on / autot ovat). A partial or mass patient takes the partitive, exactly as an ordinary object would:
Kahvia juodaan Suomessa enemmän kuin missään muualla.
Coffee is drunk in Finland more than anywhere else.
Uusia sääntöjä sovelletaan heti ensi kuusta alkaen.
The new rules will be applied starting next month.
Instructions and recipes: the neutral imperative
Beyond academia, the present passive is the standard voice of instructions — recipes, manuals, official procedures — where "one does X" is the natural framing. A Finnish recipe reads as a sequence of passives:
Taikinaan lisätään suola ja sekoitetaan tasaiseksi.
Salt is added to the dough and it is mixed until smooth.
Uuni lämmitetään 200 asteeseen ja pelti asetetaan keskitasolle.
The oven is heated to 200 degrees and the tray is placed on the middle level.
This is softer and more impersonal than a direct imperative (lisää suola, "add the salt"), which is why manuals and official notices prefer it.
Nominalisation: the passive's partner in officialese
Formal Finnish reinforces the agentless feel with heavy nominalisation — turning verbs into -minen, -us / -ys, and -nti nouns so that actions become abstract things. Paired with the passive, this produces the dense, doer-free texture of officialese (academic / formal):
Hakemuksen käsittely aloitetaan, kun kaikki liitteet on toimitettu.
Processing of the application is begun once all attachments have been submitted.
Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää muutoksen vaikutuksia.
The aim of the study is to clarify the effects of the change.
Overdone, this becomes the impenetrable kapulakieli ("gobbledygook") that Finnish style guides warn against — but in measured doses it is exactly the register that essays, reports, and regulations require. For the full flavour of bureaucratic and scholarly style, see the officialese and academic register pages.
Common Mistakes
❌ Kirja luettiin opiskelijan toimesta.
Incorrect — the Finnish passive is agentless; don't bolt on a 'by X' phrase.
✅ Opiskelija luki kirjan.
The student read the book. (name the agent → use the active voice)
❌ Autot ostetaanvat ensi viikolla.
Incorrect — the passive verb never agrees in number; it stays ostetaan.
✅ Autot ostetaan ensi viikolla.
The cars will be bought next week.
❌ Kokouksessa otettaan asia esille.
Incorrect — the present is otetaan (single -t-); -tt- belongs to the past.
✅ Kokouksessa otetaan asia esille.
The matter is raised at the meeting.
❌ Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelen… ja sitten tarkastellaan…
Inconsistent — don't switch between the personal 'I examine' and the impersonal passive in the same academic text; pick one voice.
✅ Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan… ja lopuksi todetaan…
This article examines… and finally it is concluded… (consistently impersonal)
❌ On todettiin, että…
Incorrect — the perfect is on todettu (participle), not on + past passive.
✅ On todettu, että…
It has been noted that…
Key Takeaways
- The Finnish passive is agentless — it means "one / we / people," and takes no "by"-phrase; name the doer only by switching to the active voice.
- Formal prose uses all three tenses: -taan/-tään (present), -ttiin/-tiin (past), on … -ttu/-tty (perfect); the doubled -tt- is the past, single -t- the present.
- The patient stays a grammatical object (nominative or partitive) and the verb never agrees in number: auto / autot ostetaan.
- It is the default voice of instructions and recipes (lisätään suola) and, with heavy nominalisation, of academic and official 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 Passive (Impersonal): 'one, they, people'A2 — Finnish's so-called passive is really an impersonal 'one/they/people do' — it names no agent, always implies a human doer, and keeps object case.
- Passive Word Order and the ObjectB2 — Why 'Talo rakennetaan' has no subject — the fronted noun is really the object, in the nominative or partitive, sharing the imperative's object rule.
- Officialese and Bureaucratic StyleC2 — Finnish bureaucratic style (virkakieli, kapulakieli) backgrounds the actor with two signature tools — the -minen verbal noun and the -ttava/-ttävä necessive participle — piled on agentless passives and participle postpositions; here is how to recognise it, decode it, and avoid importing it into ordinary writing.
- Academic FinnishC1 — Scholarly Finnish is precise, impersonal and nominal: heavy nominalization with -minen and -uus/-yys abstracts, the impersonal passive for objectivity, dense participial and että-clause embedding, and careful hedging — plus the harmony trap luotettavuus vs pätevyys.