Word
Pidän meditoimisesta enemmän kuin kutomisesta.
Meaning
I like meditating more than knitting.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Pidän meditoimisesta enemmän kuin kutomisesta.
pitää
to like
kuin
than / like / as (also in "before …")
enemmän
more (comparative of paljon)
kutoa
to knit (also to weave)
Questions & Answers about Pidän meditoimisesta enemmän kuin kutomisesta.
Why do the verbs for meditating and knitting end in -misesta here?
The verb pitää (to like) requires the thing you like to be in the elative case (-sta / -stä). To use an action as the object, you first turn the verb into a noun using the -minen ending (the 4th infinitive). The elative form of a -minen noun always ends in -misesta or -misestä.
Can I use the basic infinitive and say Pidän meditoida instead?
No, pitää strictly requires a noun-like object in the elative case. While English allows 'I like to meditate', Finnish requires the noun form meditoimisesta. However, in spoken Finnish, the synonymous verb tykätä is often followed by the basic infinitive (for example, Tykkään meditoida).
Why is kutomisesta also in the elative case when it comes after kuin (than)?
When making a comparison with enemmän kuin (more than), the two things being compared must match in their grammatical case. Since the first activity is in the elative case (meditoimisesta) because of the verb pitää, the alternative activity must also take the elative form kutomisesta to keep the sentence balanced.
How exactly is kutomisesta formed from its base verb?