Viihdyttämään

Viihdyttämään is the to-infinitive form of the Finnish verb viihdyttää, meaning to entertain, amuse, or delight. It is a non-finite verb form used to express purpose or direction, and it appears in sentences where the action of entertaining is the intended or upcoming activity.

The verb viihdyttää is transitive and typically takes a direct object in the appropriate case, for example: viihdyttää yleisöä (to entertain the audience), viihdyttää lapsia (to entertain children). The to-infinitive viihdyttämään is used in constructions that indicate purpose or intention, often after verbs of movement or intention, such as lähteä or mennä: Lähdemme viihdyttämään lapsia (We are leaving to entertain the children).

In Finnish, the viihdyttämään form can also function in subordinate non-finite clauses and in contexts where an infinitive expresses the aim of an action. Its use is most common in spoken and written Finnish when describing planned activities, events, or roles centered on entertainment. Because it expresses an ongoing or future-oriented activity, viihdyttämään often appears alongside subjects that perform the entertaining acts, though the exact construction may vary with sentence structure.

Related terms include viihdytys (entertainment) and viihdyttää (to entertain). The -ttäm- form shares the same verb stem as viihdyttää and is part of Finnish’s system of non-finite verb forms used to convey purpose or intention within a sentence.