Breakdown of Mitä enemmän viivyttelet, sitä enemmän tentti jännittää sinua.
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
sinä
you
mikä
what
tentti
the exam
enemmän
more (comparative of paljon)
jännittää
to make nervous / to feel nervous
viivytellä
to procrastinate
Questions & Answers about Mitä enemmän viivyttelet, sitä enemmän tentti jännittää sinua.
How does the 'the more... the more' structure work in this sentence?
This is built using the pattern mitä + comparative word, sitä + comparative word. In this sentence, the comparative word is enemmän (more) in both clauses. This is a fixed correlative structure in Finnish used to express how one thing increases in proportion to another.
Why does the second clause say tentti jännittää sinua instead of translating 'you are nervous' directly?
The verb jännittää is often used to mean 'to cause tension' or 'to make someone nervous'. In this structure, the thing causing the feeling (tentti) is the subject, and the person feeling it is the object. Literally, it says 'the exam makes you nervous'.
Could I turn the second half around and say sitä enemmän sinä jännität tenttiä?
Yes, you could! The verb jännittää can also mean 'to be nervous about something'. If you make yourself the subject (sinä), the thing you are nervous about must be in the partitive case (tenttiä). Both structures are perfectly natural and very common in Finnish.
Why is sinua in the partitive case here?
It is the object of the verb jännittää (when used to mean 'to make someone nervous'). In Finnish, emotion verbs that express an ongoing feeling or state—like scaring, annoying, or making nervous—almost always take a partitive object because the feeling is a continuous process rather than a completed action.
What is the dictionary form of the verb viivyttelet?
The base form is viivytellä (to procrastinate or to dawdle), which is a Type 3 verb. To get the 'you' form, you remove the -llä ending to find the stem viivyttele-, and then add the personal ending -t.
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