Questions & Answers about Hevonen on lehmää nopeampi.
Why is lehmää in the partitive case here?
In Finnish, there are two ways to say "than". One is to drop the word for "than" altogether and put the thing you are comparing against into the partitive case. Here, the basic word lehmä becomes the partitive lehmää.
Why is lehmää placed before nopeampi?
When using the partitive comparison structure, the partitive word (lehmää) is placed directly before the comparative adjective (nopeampi). This feels backward compared to English, where "than the cow" comes after "faster".
How would this sentence look if I used kuin (than)?
You would say Hevonen on nopeampi kuin lehmä. Notice that when you use kuin, the word lehmä stays in the nominative (basic) case and comes after the adjective. Both structures are completely natural!
How is the comparative nopeampi formed?
The basic adjective for "fast" is nopea. To make it "faster", we add the comparative ending -mpi. Since nopea ends in a short vowel, we just attach it directly to get nopeampi.