Voitetaan

Voitetaan is the present passive form of the Finnish verb voittaa, meaning “to win” or “to defeat.” In this form the action is described as being performed on the subject by an unspecified agent, so the doer is not stated.

As a present passive, voitetaan is formed from the verb stem voita- with the suffix -taan, producing voitetaan. The corresponding past passive is voitettiin, and the negative present passive is ei voiteta. The infinitive of the same verb is voittaa. In practice, Finnish uses the passive to focus on the outcome rather than the agent.

Voitetaan is commonly used to describe results in contexts such as sports, games, competitions, and prizes, where the winner is not always named in the sentence. It can refer to a prize or title that is won in a contest or by fulfilling certain conditions. For example, palkinto voitetaan kilpailussa (the prize is won in a competition) or palkinto voitetaan arvonnalla (the prize is won by a draw).

The form is also used in journalistic and formal writing to report outcomes without naming the winning party. Related terms include voittaa (the active form “to win”), voitto (the noun “victory” or “prize”), and voittaminen (the noun “winning” or “victory-making”). Voitetaan thus functions as a grammatical tool to express a win as a passive event, with the agent optionally introduced by other phrases.