Siirryttiin

Siirryttiin is the past passive form of the Finnish verb siirtyä, meaning to move, shift, or transition. In the passive voice, the agent performing the action is not stated, which makes siirryttiin suitable for describing a change or transition without specifying who caused it. The form is common in formal, administrative, and journalistic language, where the emphasis is on the occurrence of a change rather than on the doer.

Grammatically, siirtyä is intransitive, and siirryttiin represents the finite past passive. It is often used with time expressions to indicate when a change happened and with complements that specify what changed or to where the change occurred. For example, in a sentence like viimme viikolla siirryttiin uuteen tietojärjestelmään, the focus is on the shift to the new system rather than on who made the decision.

The agent can be implied or specified with additional phrases, but it is not required. The past passive is contrasted with active forms such as siirtyi or siirsimme, which explicitly include a subject performing the action. Siirryttiin is therefore particularly common in reports about organizational, administrative, or societal transitions, policy implementations, or relocations.

Examples in usage include siirryttiin etäopetukseen, meaning “we/they shifted to remote teaching,” and siirryttiin uuden lainsäädännön soveltamiseen, meaning “we/they began applying the new legislation.” When the subject is known and important, active constructions may be preferred for clarity. See also siirtyä and Finnish verb conjugation, particularly the formation and use of the passive voice.