Questions & Answers about Tämä joki on parempi kuin tuo.
The lesson is about the -mpi ending for comparatives, but where does the word parempi come from?
Parempi means "better" and is the irregular comparative form of the adjective hyvä (good). Just like in English where we say "better" instead of "gooder", Finnish uses parempi instead of "hyvämpi". This is the most common irregular comparative you will learn!
How does the word kuin work in this comparison?
The word kuin means "than". When you compare two things using this structure, you place kuin right after the comparative adjective (parempi). The basic pattern is: [Thing 1] + on + [comparative] + kuin + [Thing 2].
The English translation says "that one", but the Finnish sentence just ends with tuo. Why is there no word for "one"?
Finnish doesn't use a filler pronoun like "one" in these situations. You simply use the pointing word tuo (that) all by itself to mean "that one". Adding the Finnish number for one (yksi) here would sound very unnatural.
Why are both tämä joki and tuo in their basic (nominative) forms?
Because they are the two things being compared. When you use kuin (than) in a comparison, the second item (tuo) is generally put in the exact same grammatical case as the first item (tämä joki). Since tämä joki is the basic subject, tuo stays in its basic form too.