Sairastuimme

Sairastuimme is Finnish for “we fell ill” and is the 1st person plural past tense form of the verb sairastua, meaning to become ill. It indicates that the speaker and at least one other person became ill at some time in the past.

In Finnish, sairastua is an intransitive verb, and sairastuimme is formed from the stem sairastu- plus the ending -imme, which marks the 1st person plural past. Other forms of the same verb include minä sairastuin (I fell ill), sinä sairastuimme? (you singular would be sairastuuit), hän sairastui, te sairastuitte, and he sairastuivat, illustrating the person and number changes in past tense.

Usage notes: sairastuimme is used in narrative or descriptive contexts to report that illness occurred among the group including the speaker. It is common to accompany the verb with a time reference, such as viime viikolla (last week). Sairastuimme is distinct from sairastaa, which can mean to be ill or to suffer from a disease and may take a disease object (for example, sairastaa flunssaa), whereas sairastua focuses on the onset of illness rather than a direct object. The related noun is sairaus, meaning “disease.”

Example: Viime viikolla sairastuimme influenssaan. This shows the past ill ness of a group, with a time reference and the ill being the influenza.