Questions & Answers about Hän on pidempi kuin minä.
How do we get pidempi from the basic word for tall (pitkä)?
To make an adjective comparative (meaning "more" or "-er"), we add the suffix -mpi. Adding this causes two changes in the root word pitkä: the consonants tk weaken to d due to consonant gradation, and the final ä changes to e.
Is there a rule for why the final ä in pitkä changed to e before the -mpi suffix?
Yes! When adding the comparative ending -mpi to a two-syllable adjective ending in -a or -ä, that final vowel changes to -e. This makes the word easier to pronounce. For example, vanha (old) becomes vanhempi (older) in the exact same way.
Could I say Hän on minua pidempi instead of using kuin?
Exactly! In Finnish, you can express comparisons in two ways. You can use kuin followed by the basic nominative form (kuin minä), or you can drop kuin, put the person being compared to into the partitive case (minua), and place it before the adjective. Both ways are very common and mean the exact same thing.
Why does the English translation say "than me" but the Finnish sentence uses minä (I)?