Kävimme

Kävimme is the first-person plural past tense form of the Finnish verb käydä, meaning "to go" or "to visit." It indicates that the subject performed a completed action in the past, often involving movement to a location or participation in an activity. In Finnish, tense is expressed by verb inflection rather than auxiliary verbs, so kävimme is used with time adverbials such as eilen or viime viikonloppuna.

Formation and usage: The form is built from the stem kävi- plus the ending -mme, marking 1st person plural past. The corresponding singular forms are kävin, kävit, kävi. Kävimme typically accompanies a destination or place and is common with locative cases, for example illative or inessive, depending on whether the meaning emphasizes entering a place or being at a place. Examples include Kävimme kaupungissa eilen (We went to the city yesterday) and Kävimme kahvilassa (We went to/ were at the café).

Examples: Kävimme kahvilassa eilen. Kävimme kaupungissa viikonloppuna. Kävimme koululla tapaamassa vanhaa ystävää. These sentences illustrate how kävimme can express visiting, going to, or being at various locations in the past.

Notes: Kävimme is distinct from olen käynyt, which expresses the present perfect (I have visited) and uses the verb olla plus the past participle käynyt. Käydä is a common verb in everyday Finnish and appears in many idiomatic expressions.

See also: Käydä (Finnish verb), Finnish grammar.