Soitettaessa

Soitettaessa is a Finnish adverbial participle form of the verb soittaa ("to play, to call"). Morphologically it is created by attaching the temporal adverbial ending -essa/-essä to a verbal stem and commonly conveys "when/while [something is] being played" or "when/while one/people play or call." The form often carries an impersonal or passive sense: it can describe a situation that occurs during an action without specifying a particular subject.

Grammatically, soitettaessa is used to form temporal clauses that are concise and common in instructions, descriptions of events, or neutral observations. Depending on context it may translate into English as "when/while playing," "when calling," or "upon being played." For example: "Soitettaessa kappaleen alku on hiljainen" — "When the piece is played, the beginning is quiet." Or "Puhelinta soitettaessa kannattaa pitää ääni päällä" — "When calling a phone, it is advisable to keep the sound on."

In everyday Finnish, similar temporal ideas can also be expressed with subordinate conjunctions (kun + verb) or finite clauses. Soitettaessa appears frequently in written and spoken Finnish where brevity or an impersonal tone is preferred, and its precise meaning is resolved from surrounding context.