Säilyttämällä

Säilyttämällä is a Finnish verbal form derived from the verb säilyttää, meaning “to preserve” or “to keep.” It is formed with the suffix -malla and functions as an adverbial participle (often described as a gerund-like form) that expresses the means or method by which an action is performed. In English, it is commonly rendered as “by preserving” or “through maintaining.” The form is used to indicate how something is done or under what conditions something occurs, rather than who performs the action.

Säilyttämällä is common in instructional, technical, and formal writing, where the author wants to describe a method, approach, or prerequisite. It can introduce a clause at the sentence start: Säilyttämällä ruokaa viileässä voidaan estää pilaantuminen. It can also function within a clause to specify the method: Voit varmistaa tiedon säilyttämisen säilyttämällä varmuuskopiot useammassa paikassa. The construction often occurs with a finite verb in the main clause to express consequence or possibility.

Related forms include säilyttäminen, the noun for the act of preservation, and säilytys, which refers more broadly to storage or keeping. The gerundial form säilyttämällä is one of several verbal forms used to convey manner or mechanism, and its use can add precision and nuance to instructions, guidelines, and analytic texts.

See also: säilyttäminen, säilytys, säilyttää.