Menivät

Menivät is the past tense, third-person plural form of the Finnish verb mennä, which means to go or to move from one place to another. It is used when the subject is plural and the action took place in the past. For example, He menivät kotiin juhlien jälkeen. The form conveys that the action was completed in the past.

Grammar and forms: Mennä is an intransitive motion verb. The standard past tense forms for each person are: minä menin, sinä menit, hän meni, me menimme, te menitte, he menivät. Menivät is therefore the correct form for “they went.” Finnish past tense has no separate perfective/imperfect distinction in this verb form beyond the person endings, and it is commonly used in narrative and reporting to describe prior movement or departure.

Usage: Menivät frequently appears in everyday speech and written Finnish to recount events, travel, or journeys. It is commonly combined with directional or place expressions, such as kotiin (home), ulos (outside), tai kaupungin keskustaan (to the city center). In storytelling, menivät helps describe sequences of actions or movements of multiple subjects in the past.

Related forms and notes: The corresponding singular past forms are menin, menit, meni. The past participle of mennä is mennyt, used in perfect tenses (e.g., Olen mennyt kotiin = I have gone home). As with all Finnish verbs, context, aspect, and accompanying adverbs influence the nuance of the sentence.