Soittaa

Soittaa is a Finnish verb with two core meanings: to play an instrument or to perform music, and to call someone on the phone. It can also express the act of making a sound in contexts such as ringing a bell, though the primary everyday senses are playing or calling.

When used to mean playing an instrument, soittaa is transitive and typically takes the instrument in the partitive case. For example: minä soitan pianoa (I play the piano), hän soittaa kitaraa (he/she plays guitar). Finnish often uses the partitive in this construction even for indefinite or general statements, for instance “soitan pianoa.”

Soittaa also means to call someone by phone. In this sense the verb takes a person as the indirect object: minä soitan sinulle illalla (I’ll call you in the evening). It is common to use this sense with both formal and informal phrasing.

Conjugation in the present and basic forms is regular for many speakers, with a notable exception in the third-person singular form. Present tense: minä soitan, sinä soitat, hän soittaa, me soitamme, te soitatte, he soittavat. The third-person singular form, soittaa, is identical to the infinitive. Past (imperfect) tense: minä soitin, sinäoit, hän soitti, me soitimme, teoitte, he soittivat. The verb forms with auxiliary tenses reflect standard Finnish verb conjugation, for example, the perfect: olen soittanut. The imperative is soita (singular) or soittakaa (plural). The present passive is soitetaan.

Related participles include soittava (playing) and soittanut (having played).