Editing Finnish grammar (section)

===Voices===
Finnish has two possible verb [[Grammatical voice|voices]]: active and passive. The active voice corresponds with the active voice of English, but the Finnish passive voice has some important differences from the English passive voice.

====Passive voice====
The so-called Finnish passive is impersonal and unipersonal, that is, it only appears in one form regardless of who is implicitly understood to be the performer of the action. In that respect, it could be described as a "fourth person" since there is no way of connecting the action performed with a particular agent (except for some nonstandard forms; see below). It is called "passive" for historical reasons in imitation of Swedish and Latin grammars, but this term is in fact incorrect because the object of an active sentence remains an object in the equivalent Finnish "passive" sentence, in other words, the Finnish "passive" sentence is in fact active. In languages with true passives, an active sentence's object becomes the subject in the equivalent passive sentence. Active: {{lang|fi|me pidätämme hänet}} "we will arrest him" => passive: {{lang|fi|pidätetään hänet}} "he will be arrested".

Consider the example: {{lang|fi|talo maalataan}} "the house will be painted". The time when the house is being painted could be added: {{lang|fi|talo maalataan '''marraskuussa'''}} "the house will be painted '''in November'''". The colour and method could be added: {{lang|fi|talo maalataan '''punaiseksi harjalla'''}} "the house will be painted '''red with a brush'''". But nothing can be said about the person who will do the painting; there is no simple way to say "the house will be painted by Jim". There is a [[calque]], evidently from Swedish, {{lang|fi|toimesta}} "by the action of", that can be used to introduce the agent: {{lang|fi|Talo maalataan Jimin toimesta}}, approximately "The house will be painted by the action of Jim". This type of expression is considered [[prescriptive]]ly incorrect, but it may be found wherever direct translations from Swedish, English, etc. are made, especially in legal texts, and has traditionally been a typical feature of Finnish "officialese".{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} An alternative form, passive + [[ablative]], also a calque from Swedish, was once common but is now archaic.

Notice also that the object is in the form of the accusative that has the same form as the  nominative case (which is true of all words except for the personal pronouns). Verbs which govern the partitive case continue to do so in the passive, and where the object of the action is a personal pronoun in the accusative, that goes into its special accusative form: {{lang|fi|minut/sinut/hänet/meidät/teidät/heidät unohdettiin}} "I/you/(s)he/we/you/they was/were forgotten". Whether the object of a passive verb should be termed the subject of the clause has been debated, but traditionally Finnish grammars have considered a passive clause to have no subject.

Use of the passive voice is not as common in Finnish as in Germanic languages; sentences in the active voice are preferred, if possible. Confusion may result, as the agent is lost and becomes ambiguous. For instance, a bad translation of the English "the PIN code is asked for by the device when..." into {{lang|fi|PIN-koodia kysytään, kun...}} raises the question "who asks?", whereas {{lang|fi|laite kysyy PIN-koodia, kun...}} ("the device asks for the PIN code when...") is unambiguous. Nevertheless, this usage of the passive is common in Finnish, particularly in literary and official contexts. Occasionally this leads to extreme cases such as {{lang|fi|kaupunginhallitus halutaan erottaa}} "it is wanted that the municipal board be dismissed", implying that a popular uprising could be near, when this suggestion could also be made by a political group in the town council consisting of only a few or theoretically (very unlikely because misleading) even a single person.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tiililä |first=Ulla |date=18 May 2011 |title=Hyvä paha passiivi: näkökulmia |url=http://www.kotus.fi/files/1988/tiilila_hanasaari_2011.pdf |access-date=29 December 2017 |language=fi |via=Kotus.fi}}</ref>

It can also be said that in the Finnish passive the agent is always human and never mentioned. A sentence such as 'the tree was blown down' would translate poorly into Finnish if the passive were used, since it would suggest the image of a group of people trying to blow the tree down.

Colloquially, the first-person plural indicative and imperative are replaced by the passive, e.g. {{lang|fi|menemme meille}} ("we'll go to our place") and {{lang|fi|menkäämme meille}} ("let us go to our place") are replaced by {{lang|fi|mennään meille}} (see [[spoken Finnish]]).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Miten passiivia käytetään? |url=http://www.kotus.fi/index.phtml?i=495&s=2612 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120301092719/http://www.kotus.fi/index.phtml?i=495&s=2612 |archive-date=2012-03-01 |access-date=2013-01-24 |website=Kotimaisten kielten keskus |language=fi}}</ref>

Because of its vagueness about who is performing the action, the passive can also translate the English "one does (something)", "(something) is generally done", as in {{lang|fi|sanotaan että...}} "they say that..."

Formation of the passive is dealt with in the article on [[Finnish verb conjugation]].

=====As first-person plural=====
In modern colloquial Finnish, the passive form of the verb is used instead of the active first-person plural in the indicative and the imperative, to the almost complete exclusion of the standard verb forms. For example, in the indicative, the standard form is {{lang|fi|me menemme}} 'we are going', but the colloquial form is {{lang|fi|me mennään}}. Without the personal pronoun {{lang|fi|me}}, the passive alone replaces the first-person plural imperative, as in {{lang|fi|Mennään!}} 'Let's go!'. In colloquial speech, the pronoun  {{lang|fi|me}} cannot be omitted without confusion, unlike when using the standard forms {{lang|fi|menemme}} (indicative) and {{lang|fi|menkäämme}} (imperative).

====Zero person====
The so-called "zero person" is a construct in which a verb appears in the third-person singular with no subject, and the identity of the subject must be understood from the context. Typically the implied subject is either the speaker or their interlocutor, or the statement is intended in a general sense. The zero person has some similarity to the English use of the formal subject {{lang|fi|one}}.

:*{{lang|fi|Saunassa hikoilee}} "In the sauna, one sweats"
:*{{lang|fi|Jos tulee ajoissa, saa paremman paikan}} "If you arrive in good time, you get a better seat"