Breakdown of Hän on pidempi kuin minä.
olla
to be
minä
I
hän
he / she
pitkä
long, tall
kuin
than / before (in 'ennen kuin') / like / as
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)?
When using the word kuin (than), the pronoun that follows it stays in the nominative (basic dictionary) case. While English speakers often say "than me", the Finnish structure with kuin literally translates to "than I" (kuin minä).
Learn Hän on pidempi kuin minä and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free