tehtessään

Tehtessään is a Finnish gerund form derived from the verb "tehdä," meaning "to do" or "to make." It specifically functions as a temporal adverbial, indicating an action that is happening concurrently with another action. The structure of "tehtessään" combines the present active participle of "tehdä" (tehden) with the possessive suffix "-ssään," which translates to "while doing it" or "in its doing."

This grammatical construction is used to express simultaneous actions within a single sentence. For example, "Hän lauloi kävellessään" translates to "He sang while walking." In this sentence, "kävellessään" serves the same purpose as "tehtessään," indicating that the singing and walking occurred at the same time.

The "-ssään" suffix implies a reflexive possessive, referring back to the subject of the main clause. Thus, "tehtessään" always relates to the subject performing the action of "doing" or "making." It's a concise way to link two concurrent events without needing a separate conjunction like "kun" (when) or "samalla kun" (at the same time as).

Understanding "tehtessään" is crucial for comprehending the nuances of Finnish temporal constructions and for constructing more fluid and idiomatic sentences. It is a common and useful grammatical feature in spoken and written Finnish.