The past passive is the impersonal "one did / they did / people did," and in everyday speech it is also the normal way to say "we did." Its marker is -ttiin / -tiin, and like the present passive it is a single invariant form with no agreement. If you can build the present passive, the past is a small, regular step away. The perfect passive (on puhuttu) comes after this.
From present to past: swap the ending
The cleanest way in is to build the past straight from the present passive you already know. The present ending gives way to -ttiin or -tiin:
| Verb | Type | Present | Past |
|---|---|---|---|
| puhua | 1 | puhutaan | puhuttiin |
| ottaa | 1 | otetaan | otettiin |
| syödä | 2 | syödään | syötiin |
| tehdä | 2 | tehdään | tehtiin |
| mennä | 3 | mennään | mentiin |
| tulla | 3 | tullaan | tultiin |
| tarvita | 5 | tarvitaan | tarvittiin |
The pattern by type is tidy:
- Types 1, 4, 5 (present -taan/-tään, single t) → past -ttiin, double t: puhutaan → puhuttiin, otetaan → otettiin, tavataan → tavattiin.
- Type 2 (present -daan/-dään) → past -tiin: syödään → syötiin, tehdään → tehtiin.
- Type 3 (present assimilated -laan/-nään/-raan/-taan) → past -tiin on the consonant stem: mennään → mentiin, tullaan → tultiin, noustaan → noustiin.
Using it: 'one did / they did'
In writing and in the impersonal sense, the past passive reports that something was done without saying who did it:
Talo rakennettiin sata vuotta sitten.
The house was built a hundred years ago.
Kokouksessa päätettiin lykätä hanketta.
At the meeting it was decided to postpone the project.
Ennen vanhaan täällä kalastettiin paljon.
In the old days people fished a lot here.
Just as with the present, English keeps swapping its subject — "it was," "they," "people" — for the one Finnish form. And, exactly as before, you cannot add "by X": if you know who built the house, you switch to an active sentence (Isoisäni rakensi talon).
The everyday 'we did'
Here is the twist that makes this form so common. In colloquial Finnish, me + past passive is the normal way to say "we did," quietly replacing the textbook -mme form:
| Neutral / written | Everyday spoken | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| me menimme | me mentiin | we went |
| me otimme | me otettiin | we took |
| me söimme | me syötiin | we ate |
Eilen mentiin elokuviin koko porukalla.
Yesterday we all went to the movies. (informal)
Me otettiin taksi, koska satoi.
We took a taxi because it was raining. (informal)
Kesällä käytiin mummolassa joka viikonloppu.
In the summer we went to Grandma's every weekend. (informal)
This "we" reading is (informal) — in formal writing you would still write menimme, otimme, söimme. The colloquial me + passive pattern is developed further on the colloquial passive page.
Present vs past, side by side
Nykyään puhutaan enemmän englantia kuin ennen.
Nowadays people speak more English than before. (present)
Silloin puhuttiin enimmäkseen ruotsia.
Back then people mostly spoke Swedish. (past)
The only moving part is puhutaan → puhuttiin. Everything else about the sentence — the missing subject, the object case, the ban on "by X" — is identical to the present.
Common Mistakes
❌ Talo rakennettiin isoisäni toimesta.
Incorrect — the past passive still cannot name an agent. Use an active sentence: Isoisäni rakensi talon.
✅ Talo rakennettiin sata vuotta sitten.
The house was built a hundred years ago.
❌ Eilen mentaan elokuviin.
Incorrect — that's neither present nor past. The past is mentiin; the present is mennään.
✅ Eilen mentiin elokuviin.
Yesterday we went to the movies.
❌ Me otettiimme taksi.
Incorrect — the past passive takes no personal ending. It is the flat form otettiin, even for 'we'.
✅ Me otettiin taksi.
We took a taxi. (informal)
❌ Kokouksessa juodaan paljon kahvia eilen.
Incorrect — with 'yesterday' you need the past juotiin, not the present juodaan.
✅ Kokouksessa juotiin paljon kahvia.
A lot of coffee was drunk at the meeting.
Key Takeaways
- The past passive marker is -ttiin / -tiin, with an invariant neutral i — no harmony in the ending, only in the stem.
- Build it from the present: -taan → -ttiin (types 1, 4, 5), -daan → -tiin (type 2), assimilated -taan → -tiin on the consonant stem (type 3).
- It means impersonal "one/they/people did" and, like the present, never names an agent.
- Colloquially, me + past passive is the ordinary spoken "we did" — me mentiin, me otettiin (informal) — while formal writing keeps menimme, otimme.
- For "has been done," continue to the perfect passive.
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Start learning Finnish→Related Topics
- Present Passive: puhutaanA2 — How to build the present passive across all verb types — -taan/-tään with harmony — as a single invariant impersonal form: puhutaan, otetaan, syödään, mennään.
- Perfect and Pluperfect Passive: on puhuttuB1 — The compound passive tenses: on + past passive participle -ttu/-tu (on puhuttu 'has been done') and the pluperfect oli puhuttu — with an invariant auxiliary.
- The Colloquial Passive: me mennäänB1 — Spoken Finnish uses the passive as its everyday 'we' — me mennään = 'we go' — and mennään! alone = 'let's go'. Puhekieli, but near-universal in speech.
- The Past Tense (imperfekti): the -i- MarkerA2 — The imperfekti slots -i- between stem and personal ending — puhuin, puhui — the plain narrative past; watch puhui (past) versus puhuu (present).