Questions & Answers about Laki kirjoitetaan Suomessa.
How do we form the passive verb kirjoitetaan from the basic verb kirjoittaa?
First, find the weak stem of this type 1 verb, which is kirjoita-. Then, for type 1 verbs ending in -a or -ä, you change that final vowel to -e- before adding the passive ending -taan. This gives us kirjoite- + -taan = kirjoitetaan.
Why is the word for law, laki, in its basic dictionary form here? Doesn't the object of a sentence usually get an -n ending?
In a normal active sentence, a whole object would indeed get the -n ending. However, a major rule of the Finnish passive voice is that the object never takes this -n ending. Instead, it stays in the basic dictionary form, which is called the nominative case.
Why does kirjoitetaan only have one t in the middle, while kirjoittaa has two?
This happens because of consonant gradation. The passive voice is built using the weak stem of the verb. For kirjoittaa, the strong double tt weakens to a single t in its weak stem (kirjoita-), which is then used as the base for the passive word.
Could kirjoitetaan also translate to "we write"?
Yes! In everyday spoken Finnish, the passive form is extremely common as the "we" form, usually paired with the pronoun me. So Me kirjoitetaan laki means "We write the law." Since there is no me in this exact sentence, it translates to the true passive "The law is written."
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