Breakdown of Mitä enemmän muistiinpanoja, sitä parempi.
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
mikä
what
parempi
better
enemmän
more (comparative of paljon)
muistiinpano
note
Questions & Answers about Mitä enemmän muistiinpanoja, sitä parempi.
How does the "the more..., the better..." structure work here?
This sentence uses the correlative comparative structure. You start the first clause with mitä followed by a comparative word (here, enemmän), and the second clause with sitä followed by another comparative (here, parempi).
Why is muistiinpanoja in the partitive plural?
It follows the comparative word enemmän (more). Words that express amounts, like paljon (a lot) and its comparative enemmän, require the noun following them to be in the partitive case. Since notes are countable, we use the partitive plural.
Where are the verbs in this sentence?
Just like in English, this specific "the... the..." structure often drops the verb to be (olla). You could grammatically say Mitä enemmän muistiinpanoja on, sitä parempi se on, but leaving the verbs out is much more common and natural for short sayings like this.
How is the word muistiinpano (note) formed?
It is a compound word made of muistiin (into memory, which is the illative case of muisti) and pano (putting or placing). So, making a note is literally "putting into memory"!
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