Word
Tuo lehmä on hanhea hyödyllisempi.
Meaning
That cow is more useful than the goose.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Tuo lehmä on hanhea hyödyllisempi.
Where is the word for "than" in this sentence?
There isn't one! Instead of using kuin (than), this sentence uses the partitive case to show comparison. The word hanhi (goose) is put into the partitive case (hanhea) to express "than the goose".
Does the word order matter when using this partitive structure?
Yes, it is very strict. When you use the partitive instead of kuin, the word in the partitive (hanhea) must come right before the comparative adjective (hyödyllisempi). If you wanted to use kuin, the order would be hyödyllisempi kuin hanhi.
How is the comparative form hyödyllisempi built?
The base adjective is hyödyllinen (useful). For adjectives ending in -nen, you drop the -nen and add -sempi to make it comparative. That gives us hyödyllisempi (more useful).
Why is the partitive of hanhi formed as hanhea?
Hanhi is an older Finnish word ending in -i. In these older words, the final -i changes to an -e- before adding the partitive ending -a or -ä. This makes the partitive form hanhea.